


Being Different Year 7- Dragons and Deceit

by LunaLupin1999



Series: Anne Potter [8]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Autism, Camping, Dragons, F/M, Harry Potter Has a Twin, Horcruxes, Hufflepuff Cup, Kidnapping, Snatchers (Harry Potter), Wales
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:15:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 40,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25748770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaLupin1999/pseuds/LunaLupin1999
Summary: Harry and Anne can't just go waltzing back into school to finish their education, because Tom has taken over. They need to get the muggleborns into hiding and find Hufflepuff's cup before they can finally try to defeat Tom. The only problem is of course, they have no idea where the cup is....
Relationships: Anne Potter/ Irwin Scamander, Penelope Clearwater/Percy Weasley, Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks
Series: Anne Potter [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1726564
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	1. Family Bonding Time

Sirius and Julian had come to collect them from the platform. Anne didn’t know when or if she would ever be standing on this platform again, because her and Harry weren’t going to be going back for Seventh year.

“I’ll see you tomorrow ok Annie?” asked Irwin giving her a quick hug before going to go and find his Dad.

Anne worked her way over to where Sirius and Julian were standing with the trunk and cat basket. She noticed that a couple were standing very close to her family, but that Julian was trying to avoid eye contact with them.

The wizard had short blonde hair and was wearing impeccably tailored black robes and an aloof expression. The witch standing next to him had dark hair in an elegant bun and was searching frantically for her child, clearly desperate to get off the station.

“Hey Kiddo,” beamed Sirius. Julian took the trunk and cage from her as Sirius lifted her up and threw her up in the air.

“Put me down!” Anne screamed.

“I’m sorry kiddo,” chuckled Sirius, “I just missed you two so much.”

He ruffled Harry’s hair as he came over.

“Are you alright Julian?” asked Anne as she noticed that Julian was now glaring at the other family standing next to them.

Anne now knew why; Morgana had just spotted her parents and was walking over towards them. Julian was glaring at his stepfather, and Fabian Selwyn was clearly trying to act as if Julian didn’t exist. No wonder Mrs. Selwyn couldn’t wait to leave the platform, she didn’t want a fight breaking out between her husband and her estranged son.

As Morgana reached her family Mr Selwyn took her trunk from her and her mother tried ushering her away from the platform. But Morgana brushed her off and walked firmly over to where her brother was standing only a few metres away.

“Hi Julian,” she said nervously.

Mr and Mrs Selwyn still looked as though they couldn’t wait to leave the platform but stayed where they were standing.

“Hey Morgie,” smiled Julian.

“I’ve missed you,” she said giving him a huge hug.

“I know I’ve missed you too,” he chuckled.

“Then come home then!” 

“You know I can’t do that Morgie,” said Julian gently.

“You’re ok though?” she asked.

“I’m fine, now go on your Mum and Dad are waiting,” said Julian gently letting go of her.

“Tell the others I still love them,” said Julian as he sent her back off to her parents.

Morgana waved goodbye quickly before taking her father’s hand. Anne noticed that Mrs Selwyn looked back longingly at her son for a moment before the Selwyn’s left the platform.

“Come on Julian,” said Sirius putting an arm around him, “let’s get you lot home.”

Julian was looking vacantly into space where his Mum, oldest sister and stepdad had just disappeared.

“Yeah,” he muttered picking up Anne’s trunk and cage.

“You ok Julian?” asked Anne as they walked back to Grimmauld Place.

“Yeah, just a bit of a shock seeing them like that,” he admitted.

“That’s ok,” said Anne.

She sometimes forgot that Julian still had his only family that he was estranged from. Julian’s father had died when he was three and his Mum had remarried a few years later, so Julian had six younger siblings.

After his seventh year, Julian had packed his trunk and left home, he just couldn’t live with his stepfather anymore. He had been invited to join their own family only one day later and Julian had never really looked back.

They arrived at 12 Grimmauld Place and the house appeared brick by brick in-between numbers 11 and 13. They lifted the two trunks and pets up the front steps and opened the door to the house.

Something with a mass of bright pink hair came charging into them as they pulled the trunks into the hallway.

“Hey there Teddy,” beamed Harry picking up his godson, “I see you’ve learnt how to walk?”

“Walk?” exclaimed Remus, “he never walked, he ran!”

“Unca Harry,” said Teddy proudly.

“He knows my name,” said Harry in a small amount of shock.

“We’ve been practicing with photographs,” explained Remus chuckling, “he can now do, Muma, Dada, Unca Harry, Unca Padfoof, Unca Julian, Dobby, Kweacher, and Aunty Annie.”

“Well I must say I am impressed,” beamed Harry as Teddy’s hair turned light blue to match Harry’s t-shirt.

“Got any meetings tonight?” sighed Anne as she shut the door.

Since Dumbledore’s death, the house had been even more busy with the Order.

“Nope,” said Sirius simply.

“Tonight,” said Remus as he sent Anne and Harry’s trunks up to their rooms, “we are going to spend some time as a family, no meetings, no missions, Dora’s even got the night off work.”

“So does that mean?” asked Harry his mouth slightly open in shock.

“A night off from everything even Voldemort,” nodded Julian.

“Unless of course, deatheaters come charging through the door.”

“So what do you two kids want to do?”

“Burger and chips and Monty Python?” asked Harry tentatively.

“I’ll go dig out the tapes,” said Julian.

By the time that Tonks got home from work an hour later the sitting room had been transformed. Harry, Julian and Sirius had made it into some kind of fort with blankets and spare bedsheets. Monty Pythons Life of Brian had been rewinded and was ready to be played and there was mass of junk food, burgers and chips, ice cream, bowls of sweets and crisps.

Everyone changed into their pyjamas even though it was only six o’clock in the evening, and the whole family settled in for a night of Monty Python, even Dobby and Kreacher, Teddy was sitting on Anne’s lap.

At the end of the first film before they put the Holy Grail on Remus turned the television off.

“Dora and I have some very important news,” he beamed.

“We wanted to wait till now so you were all here,” explained Tonks.

“We’re pregnant,” they said together.

“Seriously?” asked Julian.

Sirius choked on the butterbeer he had been drinking.

“Another one!” he choked.

“How far long are you?” asked Anne excitedly.

“Just under four months,” said Remus.

“Teddy should get a sibling at around Christmas time,” said Tonks.

“So, Teddy,” said Anne turning him around to face her, “do you want a little brother or a little sister?”

“Auntie Annie!” he shouted proudly, before giving her a big wet kiss.

“You are adorable you know that,” she chuckled.

“Oh he knows,” beamed Sirius, “we tell him every day.”

They watched Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail before they all went to bed, tomorrow the hard work started.


	2. A Secret Meeting

The next morning Anne got dressed in her deep purple robes and did her hair in one long plait down her back.

She only picked at her breakfast, today was so important if it went wrong they were screwed.

“Tonks,” Anne said over breakfast, “can I come into work with you today?”

“Um why?” asked Tonks.

“There's someone I need to talk to,” Anne shrugged.

“Don’t forget there’s a meeting this afternoon, we need to start sorting out the muggleborns,” said Remus.

“I know I wont be gone long.”

“Alright,” said Tonks slightly suspiciously.

Tonks and Anne both pulled on their cloaks after breakfast and Anne side apparated to the ministry with Tonks.

“What is going on here Anne,” whispered Tonks as they arrived at the Ministry.

“I need to talk to someone, if I don’t we’ll all be dead within a few months.”

“Cant I help you then?” asked Tonks.

“No I have to go alone,” said Anne firmly.

Tonks looked at her nervously for a moment before heading off to the lifts to get to Auror department. Anne didn’t need the lift, she was already on the right floor.

She headed over to the offices for the Minister of Magic and Support Staff.

“How can I help you?” asked a witch who was sat at the reception desk in front of the offices.

“I need to speak to the Junior Assistant for the Minister of Magic,” said Anne clearly.

“Do you have an appointment?” asked the witch.

“Um no,” said Anne pulling at the end of her plait, “it’s an urgent family matter.”

Fortunately, Anne had red hair, so the witch believed her and showed her to the correct office.

She knocked on the door, it was right opposite the office for the Minister, Rufus Scrimgeour who was looking at her with interest.

“Enter!” called a muffled voice from within the office.

“Anne!” said a shocked voice when she went into the office.

“What are you doing here!” he whispered frantically.

“I’m here on urgent family business,” said Anne clearly before casting muffliato on the office door.

“Hello Percy,” Anne grinned sheepishly.

“What are you doing here?” Percy asked again more urgently.

“Its nice to see you too Percy,” said Anne as she sat down in the chair opposite his desk.

“Not that it isn’t great to see you Anne” Percy sighed shaking his head and smiling, “but I haven’t seen anyone in two years, any of my family or any of you.”

“Don’t tell me that you’ve come to try and get me to go to Bill’s wedding?” he asked with a look of realization on his face.

“Mum’s already sent me fifty letters, but sending you is just below low.”

“Nobody knows I’m here,” Anne explained, “we need your help, Percy.”

“I am not getting involved in the Order of the Phoenix,” said Percy firmly.

“It's not that, you know as well as I do that Tom is going to take over within a matter of months.”

Percy nodded solemnly.

“Why do you need me though,” asked Percy deeply confused.

“You’ve got to admit,” said Anne, “that you are pretty influential within the ministry.”

Percy smiled slightly.

“What can I say,” said Percy, “its what I’ve always wanted to do and I appear to be good at it.”

Anne bit her lip slightly.

“We need your help hiding muggleborns,” she blurt out.

“What?” whispered Percy.

“Hiding muggleborns,” nodded Anne.

“You can't hide all the muggleborns in the country, there's a thousand of them.”

“Anne,” said Percy looking at her with worry in his eyes, “it's not too late to back out.”

“We have to do this.”

“Anne, if he finds out, he’ll kill you, he’ll kill the muggleborns and anyone whos trying to hide them.”

“Tom’s going to kill them anyway Percy!” Anne shouted.

Percy flinched slightly.

“We’re not trying to hide all of them,” Anne explained, “just the ones up till eighteen.”

“That’s still a lot of people,” admitted Percy, “and I’m sorry but I can't help you.”

Percy looked briefly at a photograph on his desk.

“It’s Penelope isn’t it?” asked Anne, Anne remembered that Penelope was a muggleborn.

“Percy there's no if about it when Tom comes to power, the first thing he’s going to do is get rid of the muggleborns.”

Percy seemed to think for a moment before sighing deeply.

“What do you need me to do?”

“Well firstly, we need lists of the muggleborns below Hogwarts age so we can hide them too.”

“You do realize that will take me about five seconds?” asked Percy.

“Why else do you think I came to you?”

“You’ve got a point there,” chuckled Percy.

“Also, do you have any contacts in International Magical Cooperation?”

“I’m the Junior Assistant to the Minister, I have contacts in every department.”

“We’re trying to get some of the children out of the country.”

“Which country?”

“Australia.”

“Why Australia?” asked Percy.

“It’s the other side of the world, the last place Tom would look, and one of the muggleborn’s families are actually Australian.”

“Well I’ll see what I can do,” nodded Percy.

“They’ll be needing passports, immigration documents, accommodation the lot.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” before leaving his desk for a moment.

He left the office and came back twenty minutes later carrying a huge stack of parchment.

“Here’s the list of known muggleborns, eighteen and under,” he said passing her several pieces of parchment with names and addresses.

“I’ve talked to the Australian representative,” said Percy, “she says it will take a lot of sorting out, but they’ll be willing to take up to ten muggleborn children as long as they have at least four adults.”

“Well the Potagers are already going so that’s two adults, and I know Hermione wants to get her parents out of country.”

“Well that’s four adults then, so they can take ten of your muggleborns.”

“Just out of curiosity how many are we looking at here in total?” asked Anne not sure if she wanted to know the answer.

“Just under sixty,” sighed Percy.

“Where are you going to be hiding them?” he asked.

“Most of them in Order houses,” said Anne as she scanned the long list

“Oh I thought as much,” muttered Percy.

“Is there something wrong Perce?” asked Anne looking up from the parchment.

“Its Penny,” he muttered, “I’m doing all of this and she’s not even in the right age range, you cant protect her.”

“You can protect her Percy,” said Anne, “you know proper warding spells.”

Percy shrugged and looked longingly at Penelope’s picture.

“You really love her don’t you Perce?”

“I’d do anything for her,” he sobbed, “she’s the only family I’ve got left.”

“Percy,” Anne said taking his hand across the desk, “how long have I known you?”

“Fifteen and a half years,” he answered.

“I trust you otherwise I would never have come here, you may not be the biggest Dumbledore fan in the world but you know whats right. Persecuting muggleborns isn’t right Perce.”

“Why else do you think I’m helping you!” Percy shouted.

“Listen to me Perce,” said Anne urgently, “I think I can help you. Do you and Penelope live together?”

Percy looked at her confused for a moment before nodding sheepishly.

“We’re going to struggle to find space for all these kids even if we send some to Australia,” Anne explained, “have you got any spare rooms at your flat?”

Percy nodded as he stopped crying for a moment.

“One bedroom and a box room.”

“If you can take some of the kids, we can make sure you’ve got the best protection possible, you and Penelope.”

“Are you serious?” stuttered Percy.

Anne nodded.

“You already know about it, so I don’t see why you shouldn’t take some in if you want to.”

“But who would look after them while I’m at work?”

“Penelope,” said Anne simply.

Percy seemed to be smiling slightly.

“So how many can you take?”

“Three, maybe four at a push,” said Percy trying to think it through in his head.

“If you need me just contact me on this coin, you just tap it and tell it what you want it say,” said Anne passing him a galleon from her bag, she had got the idea from Hermione back in fifth year.

“Um thanks,” he said looking at the coin with interest.

“You’ll need to pick a code name,” said Anne, “so I know who the message is from.”

“How about Legolas,” he smirked.

“Perfect,” beamed Anne, she knew that most of the wizarding world had never even heard of the Lord of the Rings.

“Thank you Percy,” said Anne getting up and going to give Percy a hug, “for everything.”

“Its alright,” said Percy, “its only what anyone else would have done.”

“Its not Perce and you know it,” she chuckled as she put away her list of muggleborns in her bag.

“Your family misses you you know,” she told him.

Percy raised his eyebrow slightly at her.

“Oh alright, your Mum misses you,” admitted Anne.

“Anne,” said Percy as she turned to leave, “you can't tell anyone about this, any of this.”

“Even if your family might forgive you?” asked Anne.

Percy shook his head firmly.

“Good luck,” Percy called.

“You too,” she replied before taking the muffliato charm off the door.

She stood in the wide-open doorway, where the Minister for Magic was still watching from across the hallway.

“Just so you know,” she sobbed fake tears running down her cheeks, “you’re breaking Aunty Molly’s heart by not coming to the wedding.”

She ran from the office and flued home before anyone realised that the tears running down her cheeks were fake ones and that her hair was dark red rather than the Weasley bright red.

“Are you alright Sis?” asked Harry as she appeared in the kitchen at Grimmauld Place.

“You look you’ve been crying,” he added.

“I’m fine,” Anne shrugged.

“You all finished with your secret business?” asked Julian

“For your information yes I have,” she said smiling.

“What have you been up to?” asked Harry suspiciously.

“You’ll find out,” she said her head in the air as she left the room.

Anne had a quick sandwich for lunch and changed into a tee-shirt and a pair of jeans before heading down to the meeting downstairs.

It wasn’t as big as the meeting in April had been but the sitting room in Grimmauld place still had at least twenty people there, including their newest member Hermione Granger, who was sat next to Ron. Harry and Anne weren’t officially of age yet but it was only a few weeks away and as they were so important in this mission, they had been invited to the meeting.

“Right,” said Kingsley, “well thank you everyone for coming.”

“The first thing we need to do is to check how many prospective houses we have available,” said Moody.

“Well we’re going to take some here obviously,” said Sirius, “its already so well protected.”

“Naturally,” muttered Kingsley writing it down.

“How many?” asked Moody.

“Ten?” offered Sirius

“I and Gwen can take some,” said Landon, “we’ve already got Av and Ais and loads of space.”

“How many can we put you down for?” asked Kingsley who was making a list.

Landon seemed to be figuring something out in his head.

“If Rolf and Irwin share, then we’ve got three spare rooms, so I’d say six?”

“Thank you, Landon,” said Moody earnestly.

“We’d love to take some,” said Mr Weasley, “but what with the wedding…..”

“It’s alright Arthur,” said Moody, the Burrow was already stretched to bursting point with the preparation for Bill and Fleurs wedding in a few weeks.

“I can take a few,” said Lyall Lupin.

“Are you sure Dad?” asked Remus.

“I brought you up, I can cope with a few kids,” chuckled Lyall.

“Should I put you down for three Lyall?” asked Kingsley.

Lyall nodded.

“Its only Neville and I at ours, we’ve got three spare rooms,” said Mrs Longbottom.

“Six?” suggested Kingsley.

Mrs Longbottom nodded.

“Are you sure Augusta?” asked Mrs Weasley, “six children is a lot to handle.”

“It’ll give me something to do whilst Neville is at school, besides it could be exciting, and I’ve got Winky to help me.”

“Fair enough,” muttered Mrs Weasley.

“How many is that so far?” asked Moody.

“Twenty-five,” sighed Kingsley.

“It would be useful if we actually knew how many we were dealing with,” said Kingsley.

“Well actually,” said Anne handing him a few pieces of parchment, “we do.”

Kingsley and Moody quickly scanned through the parchment.

“Anne,” stuttered Kingsley, “you’re a miracle worker.”

“Where did you even get these?” asked Moody as he scrolled through the lists.

“Ministry contact,” she smiled.

“Less said the better?” asked Kingsley.

“Well I’m not going to complain,” said Moody impressed, “we’ve got the lists of every muggleborn of eighteen and below in the country.” 

“Well done sis,” said Harry giving her a hug.

“Is that what you were up to this morning?” asked Remus.

Anne blushed and nodded slightly.

“So how many are we dealing with then?” asked Sirius.

“Eighty,” said Anne, “but twenty are under six and don’t need worrying about immediately. Tom’s not going to care about five year olds.”

“So that’s still sixty,” muttered Sirius.

“But we’ve already found places for twenty-five,” pointed out Mr Weasley hopefully.

“Theres more,” Anne said.

The whole room turned to look at her with interest.

“I’ve found someone who is willing to take either three girls and one boy, or three boys and one girl.”

“Well that’s another four.”

“My contact had also been in touch with the a representative from the Australian Ministry of Magic, they’ve agreed to help us.”

“How?” asked Moody.

“Well they are willing to take the Potager family, so Brenda, Keith and Liz will be going back to Australia.”

“They were going to try doing that anyway,” said Harry,

They had talked to Brenda about her and family going back home.

“They have also agreed to take nine more muggleborn children, if they have two more adults.”

“Are you serious, they are willing to take ten muggleborns?” asked Kingsley.

“It also means,” said Anne looking over to Hermione, “that we can get Mr and Mrs Granger out of the country.”

Hermione’s mouth dropped open slightly.

“But Australia’s so far away,” she said trying to hold back her tears.

“Which is why Tom won’t look there,” said Anne.

“Also, the Australian Ministry are going to give them all the best protection possible.”

“You’re right Kingsley,” said Moody, “she is a miracle worker.”

“How many does that leave?” asked Remus.

“Twenty-one,” said Kingsley, “twenty if we don’t include Hermione.”

“That’s still a lot,” sighed Lyall.

“If we’ve found housing for forty, we can find some for the other twenty,” said Moody.

“And the best part is,” said Kingsley, “we now know where and who they all are,” he indicated the parchment.

“Just out of curiosity Anne,” asked Moody at the end of the meeting, “how long did all this take you?”

“Oh about an hour,” she shrugged, “my friend did most of the work.”

“And you can't tell us who that is?” asked Moody.

“No, they swore me to secrecy.”

“Anne,” said Remus pulling her in for a hug, “do you know how many lives you have saved today?”

“It’s nothing,” she shrugged before getting ready for the next day.

She had to go visit the Potagers and was meeting up with another school friend tomorrow.


	3. Anne Meets A Living Legend

Anne got dressed quickly in a pair of jeans and rugby jersey. She found the soft material of the jerseys comfortable for some reason and was today wearing an England rugby top. The only problem with ruddy England rugby tops was the colour was so impractical, they were bright white. How were you supposed to keep a white shirt white in a rugby match?

She plaited her hair into her two plaits and ate a slice of toast whilst waiting for Hermione to arrive. She couldn’t go to the muggle houses on her own, because as she was not yet seventeen she still had the trace so couldn’t apparate on her own. At any rate the Grangers needed to talk to the Potgers anyway, so they were picking her up at eight o’clock in their car.

When she finished her toast, it was five minutes to eight. She slid her wand into her jeans pocket, kissed Teddy on the top of the head and told Remus she’d be home in time for dinner.

Anne went out of the house to find Hermione and two very confused muggles who couldn’t even see the house.

“Are you sure we’ve got the right address Hermione?” asked Mr Granger.

“Yes,” chuckled Hermione, “she’s right there.”

“Jesus Christ,” shouted Mr Granger

Mrs Granger had screamed slightly

Anne had just appeared out of what must have appeared to Mr and Mrs Granger as out of nowhere.

“Mum, Dad,” chuckled Hermione, “this is Anne, Harry’s sister.”

“Um hello Anne,” said Mr Granger still slightly flabbergasted.

“Hi,” said Anne pulling at the end of one of her plaits.

“You got the addresses dear?” asked Mrs Granger.

“Oh yeah they’re here,” said Anne handing her a piece of parchment with two addresses written down on it.

“Well one of these is on the outskirts of London,” said Mr Granger, “and the other one’s in Devon, we should get a move on.”

Anne settled into the back of the car with Hermione and did up her seatbelt.

Mrs Granger checked the maps whilst Mr Granger got the car started.

They had found the Potgers house within an hour. It was a large house in a suburb just outside London.

Anne got out of the car and looked at the house nervously, one of the Seekers lived in that house.

She shook herself out of it and walked up to the door swiftly followed by the three Grangers.

“Go on,” said Hermione, nudging Anne towards the door.

She took a deep breath and knocked firmly on the door.

There was a sound of movement from within the house, and the door was unlocked.

“G’day,” said a man with a strong Australian in his mid-fifties opening the door, “can I help you lot?”

“You’re,” stammered Anne, “you’re, Ki Kieth Pot.”

“Keith Poteger, I’m well aware” he grinned, “and you are

“Um, Anne,” she stuttered, “Anne Potter.”

Anne was surprised that she had been able to say that much, she was standing in front on one of her idols, one of the four members of The Seekers.

“Oh,” said Keith in realisation, “Brenda’s told me a lot about you, said you might be coming round, something about an evil wizard?”

“I think we should talk about this inside,” said Hermione looking around nervously, “where we can’t be heard.”

“Oh of course, come in,” said Keith standing away from the doorway and ushering them inside.

“So, from what Brenda’s told me you’re a pretty big fan Anne?”

Anne nodded enthusiastically.

“I’ll have to see if I can get you some tickets if we ever make it out the other side of this bloody nightmare,” he chuckled.

“Brenda, Liz!” he called up the stairs, “we’ve got company!”

“Can’t you let a girl sleep?” asked Brenda leaning over the bannisters still wearing her pyjamas, her hair hanging over the banisters in a sheet.

“I only got back from school two days ago!” 

“It’s some friends of yours,” called Keith.

“Hermione! Anne!!!” she screamed before rushing down the stairs in her pyjamas.

“Hi Brenda,” beamed Anne pulling her in for a hug.

“Hi Brenda,” said Hermione, “these are my parents James and Helen.”

“So you two young ladies are witches then?” asked Brenda’s Aunt Liz as she came downstairs having just gotten up.

“Yes,” said Hermione, “we’re friends from school.”

“I’m going to go put the kettle on,” said Liz.

“So,” said Keith as they all sat with cups of tea in the sitting room, “what’s all this about some old git of a geezer who’s got in for our Brenda?”

“Well I suppose the best way to explain Voldemort and his followers is like wizard Nazis.”

“Surely that must be an overreaction?” exclaimed Liz.

Brenda shook her head.

“Not in the slightest,” said Anne, “Tom killed my parents when I was only fifteen months old.”

“Who’s this Tom?” asked Keith.

“Yeah I thought you said his name was Voldy something.”

“Voldemort,” said Anne, “Tom Riddle is his real name, I’ve always called him Tom.”

“Ok,” said Liz, “so why does he want to kill our Brenda?”

“As we said the best way to put it is Wizard Nazis,” said Mr Granger, “you know how Hitler wanted to get rid of all the Jews?”

Keith and Liz both nodded.

“Yes well, Voldemort has similar feelings towards muggle borns like Brenda.”

“So, he doesn’t like people from non-wizarding backgrounds?” asked Keith.

“He doesn’t just not like them, he hates them,” said Hermione, “I’m a muggle born myself.”

“Why now though?” asked Liz.

“We are worried that Tom will be running the school before September, we need you all to go into hiding.”

“I can hardly go into hiding,” chuckled Keith, “I’m quite well known.”

“You’re not going into hiding as such,” said Hermione.

“You’re going back to Australia,” said Anne.

“Brenda said about as much when she got home,” muttered Liz.

“When are we leaving?” asked Keith.

“Sixteenth of July,” said Mr Granger.

“That only gives us twelve days,” stammered Liz.

“We’d best get packing then,” said Keith.

“Is it just us going?” asked Brenda.

“Yeah, couldn’t we take some of the other kids with us?” asked Keith.

“You will be,” explained Anne, “Brenda and nine other muggle born children.”

“That’s a lot of kids,” muttered Liz.

“The further they are away from this bloke the better though from the sounds of it,” said Keith.

Liz nodded in agreement.

“My Mum and Dad are going too,” said Hermione, “Voldemort’s got it in for me, so I need to get them out of the country.”

“Well, at least we’ll have a bit of help with all the kids,” said Keith.

“We’d love to stay and talk,” said Mrs Granger as she finished her tea, “but we have another family to visit.”

“Don’t worry that’s alright love,” said Liz.

“Sounds like we’ve got a whole house to pack up in twelve days,” said Keith.

The Granger’s and Anne piled back into the car.

“Just out of curiosity,” asked Mr Granger, “do the other family actually know we’re coming?”

“Yes,” said Anne, “I owled them last night.”

Mr Granger started out the car, and three hours later they were outside a large set of gates.

The electric gates were around a huge estate.

Mr Granger drove up nervously to the intercom.

“Good morning,” said a crisp voice down the intercom, “how can I help you?”

“Erm hi,” he stuttered, “I’m Mr Granger, we’re here to see Justin.”

“Oh yes of course, the family are expecting you,” said the voice.

The gates swung open, and Mr Granger drove down the drive way which was at least a mile long.

“Did you know that Justin’s family were so rich?” asked Hermione.

“I mean I know he was signed up for Eton and all.”

“Oh yeah,” nodded Anne, “the Finch Fletchleys are loaded, Lisa’s told me all about it. They’re very rich landowners, with the titles to go with it.”

“Are you telling me,” Mrs Granger stammered, “that we are about to visit a Lord and Lady?”

“Lord Johnathon and Lady Cynthia Finch Fletchley and their son Justin,” nodded Anne.

They had just reached the end of the driveway and parked in front of a huge manor house. A middle aged man and woman were standing in front of the house with Justin and Lisa. Lady Finch Fletchley was wearing a floral print summer dress and Lord Finch Fletchley was wearing a pair of chinos and a navy polo shirt.

“Anne!” exclaimed Lisa as Anne got out of the car.

“I only saw you two days ago,” chuckled Anne as Lisa threw herself at her.

“Hi Justin,” said Hermione waving.

“These are my Mum and Dad, Helen and George Granger.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” stammered Mrs Granger shaking Justin’s hand.

“These are my parents, John and Cynthia, Mum Dad, this is Anne Potter and Hermione Granger.”

“Its a pleasure to meet you Anne,” beamed John as he shook Anne’s hand vigorously, “we owe you and your brother so much!”

Anne merely shrugged, and the Finch Fletchley’s invited them inside where a lunch of sandwiches was being served in the sitting room.

“So, you guys already know all about Voldemort then?” asked Hermione.

“Oh yes,” said Cynthia “Justin and Lisa explained all about him.”

“He sounds like a right fucking bastard,” muttered John.

“John!” exclaimed Cynthia, “language.”

“No,” said Mr Granger, “he’s right.”

“Well we need to get muggle borns like Justin, Lisa and myself into hiding,” said Hermione.

“They’ve explained that too,” said John.

“We were wondering,” said Anne, “if you wouldn’t mind having some children here.”

“We’d love to help in any we can,” said Cynthia.

“But we’re not magical, if anyone comes looking for them, we’d be useless. Unless I could shoot them with my riffle,” chortled John.

“Oh we know that,” said Hermione, “but Lisa and Justin are nearly qualified, and Dean is going to be here too.”

“The Lupin’s might be coming as well, Mrs Lupin is an auror, that’s a professional dark wizard fighter,” explained Anne.

“And the house will be well protected, and we can show you how to put up the wards each night.”

“The only problem is,” muttered Hermione, “do you have a lot of staff here?”

“Well,” said Cynthia thinking, “there’s the housekeeper and the butler.”

“The groundskeeper, and the gardeners,” said John.

“And the cleaners,” said Justin.

“So not as many as there could be,” shrugged Cynthia.

“And um,” muttered Anne, “do they know about um er Justins powers?”

“Oh yes they’ve known for years,” nodded John, “they’ve all worked here for years, Justin’s accidental magic before we found out he was a wizard used to scare the living daylights out of all of us.”

“But they know not to tell anyone about it?” asked Mrs Granger.

“Oh yes of course,” said Cynthia.

“How many kids would we be talking about here?” asked John.

“Well there’s up to twenty that still need housing,” said Anne.

“We’ll take the lot,” beamed John.

“What will the neighbours say,” muttered Cynthia.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said John, “some kind of charity organisation.”

“Yeah, like a holiday home for orphans,” said Justin, “you know the sort of thing Mum.”

Cynthia seemed to be uncertain for a moment, but then she looked at Justin and Lisa, they hadn’t asked for any of this, but a madman was after their blood.

“Oh alright,” she sighed laughing slightly.

“Thanks Mum,” beamed Justin pulling Cynthia in for a huge hug.

“How long is this all going to be for?” asked John.

“We’re going to get rid of Tom as quickly as we can, but it could be at least a year.”

John nodded.

“You have no idea how grateful we are,” said Anne earnestly.

“Oh its nothing, as you can see we’ve got the room,” said John.

“It will be nice for it to be used for something useful for once,” beamed Justin.

“The rooms won’t be empty,” sighed Cynthia with tears in her eyes, “instead of the ghosts of the voices and laughter of the children John and I never had, there will be actual children.”

“It’s alright Cynth,” said John sitting down next to his wife and putting an arm around her as Cynthia burst into tears and pulled out a handkerchief.

“I’m the wonder child,” explained Justin, “Mum and Dad tried for years before they had me, tried everything. Eventually I showed up and they thought it was a ruddy miracle, and that was before I started showing my powers.”

“Well with twenty children theres certainly going to be lot of kids running around the house,” chuckled Mr Granger.

“And that’s without baby Teddy,” pointed out Anne.

“Who’s Teddy?” asked Cynthia as her tears started to subside.

“Remus and Dora’s son, he’s fifteen months old,” explained Anne.

“There’s something else we need to tell you,” Lisa muttered, “Remus is a werewolf.”

“A what?” gasped Cynthia.

“He’s fine!” explained Anne, “he just locks himself out of the way at full moons, he’d never hurt a fly.”

Cynthia and John seemed uncertain for a moment.

“You met Persephone last Summer, right?” asked Justin.

His parents nodded.

“Perfectly normal and lovely person?”

They nodded again.

“Charming young lady,” said John.

“Exactly,” said Justin, “well she’s a werewolf too.”

“Well I don’t see a problem if you don’t John,” said Cynthia.

“Persephone might have to come here too,” said Hermione, “she cant go back to school.”

“So we’d be hiding twenty children and two werewolves from the wizarding equivalent of the Nazi party?” asked John.

“Yes,” said Anne biting her lip slightly.

“Well,” he sighed chuckling slightly, “what’s the fun in life without a little danger?”

“What date will everyone be arriving?” asked Cynthia.

“The eighteenth of July,” said Anne, “the Lupins might come a day of two early to help you set up.”

“Fine by me,” said John.

They all shook hands and Anne left Justin and Lisa a coin to contact her on after having picked the code names of Gladys and Clive, from their favourite sitcom Hi Di Hi!

After that the Granger’s drove Anne back to Grimmauld Place, it had been yet another long day. She had left the house at eight o’clock that morning and got back home at just gone five.

“Heya Anne,” beamed Julian as Anne came back into the house.

“Hi,” said Anne.

“You been having more secret meetings with Ministry contacts?” he asked smirking with his arms folded across his chest.

“Oh yeah, and I’m going to wander around the Ministry in a muggle rugby jersey?” she asked sarcastically.

“Hi darling,” said Remus as Anne went into the sitting room, “good day?”

“Long day,” she groaned flopping down onto the sofa.

“What have you been up to?” he chuckled.

“Talking to the Potgers and the Finch Fletchleys,” she sighed as Remus pulled her in for a hug.

“How’d it all go?”

“The Potgers are fine with going to Australia as planned, the Finch Fletchleys have agreed to take the other twenty.”

“That’s a lot,” muttered Remus.

“You and Dora are going to move there too with Teddy, giving them extra protection.”

“You have been busy, haven’t you?” he chuckled.

There was no answer however as Anne had fallen asleep leaning into his body.

“You know poppet,” muttered Remus as he lifted her gently off of the sofa, “I sometimes forget how young you are with all you’ve been through. But underneath you’re still my little girl, aren’t you?”

Remus carried Anne slowly up to her bedroom, took off her shoes and tucked her into bed still fully dressed in her rugby jerseys and jeans.

“Get some sleep sweetheart,” he said kissing her lightly on the forehead before leaving the room.


	4. In Which the First Two Kids Arrive

The next two weeks were hectic, members of the Order were having to go around to all the muggleborns houses. They had to explain to the younger children that not only were their sons or daughters magical, but that the children also had to go into hiding.

Seeing as some of the children were only six years old, the parents were less than impressed to say the least, but unfortunately there was nothing that could be done about it.

They had a lot of families to get through, they had sixty muggle borns to move between the 15th and 19th of July, fortunately three of the members of the Order, Remus, Arthur and Landon, had muggle driving licences and cars. So, it wouldn’t be as hard as it could have been.

On the 8th of July, Remus and Anne had to some more visits, but these weren’t too muggle families, two of the children were in orphanages, one in Somerset, and the other in Cornwall.

Anne got up at six o’clock and pulled on a pair of jeans, and a blue and green striped rugby jersey. 

“You ok Annie?” asked Remus poking his head around the door, he was already dressed himself in a pair of jeans and a jumper.

“Yep, all ready to go,” she said as she tied up her shoelaces on her trainers.

“Come on then,” said Remus, “we’ve got two kids to pick up.”

As they were collecting the two muggleborns today from orphanages they had to pick them up today rather than at some point next week. Both of the kids were going to be staying at Grimmauld Place anyway.

Anne settled into the front seat of the car; it was so comfortable she had to tried to stop herself from dropping back off to sleep.

Remus had rung the two orphanages yesterday to let them know that the children had been picked for a special school which even kept the children during the holidays.

“We’re here Annie,” said Remus as they pulled up in front of the first home at just gone nine o’clock.

Remus and Anne got out of the car and went to ring the doorbell.

“Good morning, may I help you?” asked a kind faced woman answering the door.

“Hello, I’m Mr Lupin, I’m a teacher at a special academy in Scotland, we rang you yesterday about one of the residents here?”

“Oh yes,” nodded the woman, “you mean Jack, I told him you were coming, he’s waiting for you in his room, he’s very excited already packed.”

The woman showed them up to Jack’s room.

Remus knocked on the door.

“Come in!” called an excitable voice.

Remus opened the door and they found a nine-year-old boy with dark hair. He was trying to sit on his suitcase so he could squeeze his overflowing suitcase shut.

“Hello,” said Remus kindly, “you must be Jack?”

“Yeah,” Jack beamed, “so am I moving to Scotland then?”

Remus smiled slightly.

“My name is Remus, and this is my niece Anne,”

“Hi,” Jack waved.

Remus shut the door and cast the muffliato charm on it.

“Jack,” said Anne, leaning down on the floor to talk to him, “have you ever felt that you were a bit.”

Anne stopped for a moment trying to find the right words.

“Different?”

Jack shrugged.

“Not really,” he explained, “I’ve got lots of friends, get on with everyone.”

“Jack,” said Remus sitting down on the bed, “do you believe in magic?”

“What you mean like Lord of the Rings?”

“Sort of,” chuckled Remus.

“How would you feel if we told you that you were a wizard?”

“A what?” breathed Jack.

“A wizard,” nodded Anne, “you can do magic.”

“Have you ever been ever to do something that most people can’t?” asked Remus.

“Sometimes the lights flicker on or off when I’m upset about something,” said Jack trying to think back.

“Anything else?” asked Anne.

“One time, I fell out of a tree, but I just bounced instead of getting hurt or anything.”

Remus and Anne nodded to each other.

“Can you two do magic?” asked Jack.

Remus shut the curtains on the windows in case anyone was looking in.

He pulled out his wand and levitated a book around the room.

“Wow,” Jack whispered.

“Can you do magic too?” he asked looking at Anne.

Anne pulled her wand out of jeans pocket and pointed it a teddy bear on Jack’s bed.

The teddy bear began to dance.

“Cool!!” exclaimed Jack.

“When can I get one of those?” he asked.

“I’m afraid you can’t Jack,” said Anne trying to explain.

“There’s a very evil wizard who is trying to hurt wizards and witches from non-wizarding families like you,” said Remus.

“You are going to have to go into hiding,” Anne explained putting her hands on his shoulders.

“But what about school?” stuttered Jack.

“Hopefully,” said Remus, “by the time you turn eleven, Voldemort will be gone, until then you are going to be taught at home.”

“Do you understand Jack?” she asked.

Jack nodded, there was just so much for him to take in.

Remus and Anne helped Jack pack the last of his things, he had two suitcases and a backpack of things, which they loaded into the car.

“So,” said Jack as he got in the back of the car “are we going to London now?”

“Not quite yet no,” chuckled Remus.

“We have another child to pick up first,” said Anne.

It was two and a half hours to Cornwall and Jack didn’t stop asking questions all the way. He was so excited, who was Voldemort, what was Hogwarts, why did Remus have strange scars on his face.

Remus answered all the questions as best as he could, Anne spent most of the time staring out of the window watching the landscape fly past.

“Jack,” asked Remus as they pulled up in front of the other home, “do you want to help?”

Jack nodded enthusiastically.

Remus went and rang the doorbell again.

“Hello?” asked a frantic man.

“Hello, I’m Mr Lupin I rang yesterday about one of your residents?”

“Oh yeah that’s right,” said the man running a hand through his hair, “sorry we’re in the middle of lunch.”

“That’s alright,” said Remus as they went into the orphanage.

“Are you sure you want little Livi for your school?” he stammered as he led them up to the room, “she’s only five.”

“Olivia is an exceptionally talented young lady and we would love to have her as a student at our school,” nodded Remus.

“Well, I’ll give you that she is bright,” said the man, “but she is a but umm different.”

“Olivia,” said the man poking his head round her door, “the people from the school are here.”

“Look, I’d love to stay and help,” he said frantically, ‘but I’ve got the lunches to sort out.”

“That’s fine,” said Anne, “we can sort it out.”

Anne went in and found a tiny girl with long mousy brown hair sat on the bed. There was a suitcase and a backpack already packed ready to go and the little girl was clutching onto a teddy bear for dear life.

“Hi,” said Anne sitting down on the bed next to her, “are you Olivia?”

Olivia looked at Anne curiously before nodding.

“My name is Anne,” she said smiling.

“Olivia,” said Remus kneeling down to talk to her, “do you believe in magic?”

Olivia looked confused for a moment before smiling at him.

“Can you do anything special Olivia,” asked Jack, “something the other children can’t.”

Olivia hide behind her hair quietly.

“Remus,” said Anne, “is it ok if I talk to Olivia alone, I think there’s too many people.”

“I’ll be outside if you need help alright?” said Remus as he and Jack got up to leave.

“Olivia,” said Anne, “I think you might be a very special girl.”

“I’m a freak,” whispered Olivia still hiding behind her hair and clutching onto her teddy.

“And who’s told you that?” asked Anne.

“The other children,” she stammered.

“I don’t have any friends, Tom and Claire the care workers think I’m just too shy.”

“Why do the other children think you’re weird?” asked Anne.

Olivia just clutched even more tightly on to her teddy bear.

“Is it because you can do this?” asked Anne as she held out her hand.

She made a book levitate around the room wandlessly.

Olivia looked at Anne in shock.

“You can do that too?” Olivia whispered excitedly.

Olivia beckoned with her hand at the book that Anne had been levitating and it moved towards her lap.

“And a lot more,” said Anne, “you are a witch Olivia.”

“So, I’m not a freak?” asked Olivia.

“No, you’re not,” said Anne giving her a huge hug, “you’re a very special and talented little girl.”

“So, am I going to go to magic school?”

“No Olivia you’re not old enough, you can go when you’re eleven.”

Olivia seemed to be slightly disappointed at this.

“I’m afraid Olivia, there’s a very evil wizard,” Anne sighed, “he doesn’t like little girls and boys like you and Jack, he doesn’t feel like you should have magic.”

“Has he hurt people?” stammered Olivia.

Anne nodded slowly.

“I’m afraid so,” Anne sighed, “he killed my parents when I was younger than you.”

“He killed your Mummy and Daddy?” whispered Olivia with tears in her eyes.

“Yes, he tried killing my brother too,” Anne nodded.

“That’s horrible,” cried Olivia.

“I know,” said Anne giving her another hug.

“If he killed your Mummy and Daddy who do you live with?” asked Olivia.

“My Uncle Remus and Uncle Sirius were friends with my Mummy and Daddy,” explained Anne, “they’ve brought Harry and me up.”

“Is he going to try and hurt me?” whispered Olivia.

Anne took a deep breath and nodded slowly.

“That’s why you have to move,” Anne sighed.

Olivia nodded slightly as Anne dried the tears off of Olivia’s face.

Anne got off the bed and held out her hand for Olivia’s.

Olivia took Anne’s hand and held firmly onto her teddy with the other hand.

“Remus,” said Anne as they went into the corridor, “we’re ready?”

Remus came back into Olivia’s room and picked up her suitcase, Jack grabbed Oliva’s backpack and they all went out to the car.

Anne put Olivia’s car seat in the back of the car and strapped her in and then sat in the back of the car with her.

Jack got into the front with Remus.

They stopped at a petrol station before they hit the motorway back to London, to get some petrol for the car and some sandwiches and crisps for lunch.

Anne stayed sitting in the car with Olivia whilst Remus and John went into the petrol station.

“You ok Livi?” asked Anne.

Olivia nodded.

“I’m ok I’m just scared of Tom.”

“You’re going to be alright now Livi,” Anne assured taking hold of Olivia’s free hand.

“Here you go girls,” said Remus passing them their lunches as he got back to car.

“Two ham sandwiches, two packets of crisps and two bottles of water.”

“Thanks Remus,” beamed Anne as she opened up her sandwich.

“Do you want prawn cocktail or cheese and onion?” Anne asked her.

Olivia seemed to think for a moment.

“Cheese and onion please,” said Olivia smiling slightly.

Anne and Olivia looked out the windows on the long drive back up to London, Jack was still jabbering away asking hundreds of questions.

“Remus?” said Jack asking his thousandth question, “are all witches so quiet?”

Anne and Olivia had been looking out the window instead of joining in with the conversation for the last three hours and there was still two hours left.

“No,” chuckled Remus, “Anne and Olivia are just very shy young ladies.”

Eventually they reached the house at just gone six o’clock, twelve hours after Anne and Remus had left that morning.

“Are you two ready to see some more magic?” asked Remus as they got out of the car.

Jack nodded enthusiastically; Olivia gave a slight nod.

“Welcome,” said Remus clearly, “to number 12 Grimmauld Place.”

The house started to appear one brick at a time, squeezing itself between numbers 11 and thirteen.

“Woah!” exclaimed Jack his mouth wide open.

Olivia gripped tightly onto Anne’s hand.

Remus and Jack went to go get the bags out of the boot of the car.

“Come on you two,” said Remus as he carried Jack’s bags up the steps to the house.

Jack and Remus took the bags into the house, and Anne and Olivia walked up the steps. Olivia was holding firmly on to Anne’s hand with hers and was gripping on to her Teddy’s paw with the other.

“Hey Remus!” called Julian as they came into the house.

“You got the kids then?” asked Sirius.

“Yeah,” said Remus as he and Jack left the bags in the hallway, “this is Jack and Olivia.”

“Well I see a Jack,” chuckled Harry, “but I see no Olivia.”

Olivia had been hiding behind Anne, there were so many people all calling over each other.

“Livi’s a bit shy,” explained Anne as she tried to coax her out from behind her.

“Olivia,” said Anne gently kneeling down to talk to her.

“This is my Uncle Sirius, and Julian, and this is my twin brother Harry.”

Olivia waved shyly.

“Hi Olivia,” said Julian.

“Should we go pick you two out some rooms then?” asked Sirius taking Jack’s suitcases.

Jack eventually decided on a room on the fourth floor, which he was going to have to share with another boy when the others arrived next week.

Anne tried helping Olivia pick a room, but she seemed to be struggling

“I’m still scared,” she stammered.

“Of Tom?” she asked.

Olivia nodded nervously.

“You’re perfectly safe here,” Anne assured her.

Olivia still seemed terrified.

“Olivia,” asked Anne, “do you want to come in with me, I could look after you tonight?”

“Ok,” muttered Olivia smiling slightly.

Remus carried Olivia’s bags up to Anne’s room, so that Anne could keep an eye on her.

“You have such a pretty room,” said Olivia tracing the flowers that were painted on the walls.

“Do you like books?” asked Anne.

Olivia nodded enthusiastically.

“I’m going to show you something truly magical,” Anne said smiling and taking Olivia next door to the library.

“Woah,” breathed Olivia as she looked at the walls stacked high with books.

Anne and Olivia were halfway through going through some of the books when Tonks came to find them.

“So, have we got ourselves another bookworm?” chortled Tonks looking at the two girls kneeling down by the books.

“Livi, this is Dora Remus’s wife,” Anne explained, “and their son Teddy.”

“Hello,” stammered Olivia, she had never seen a woman with bright purple hair, let alone a baby with turquoise hair.

“Dora and Teddy are metamorphmagi,” explained Anne, “that means they can change their appearance at will.”

“Oh,” said Olivia still slightly shocked.

“Remus says you two need to come and get some dinner,” said Tonks beaming.

“Pizza?” asked Anne looking up from the books.

“Pizza,” nodded Tonks.

Anne and Olivia’s faces both cracked into smiles a mile wide and headed downstairs for some pizza.

After dinner Anne and Olivia headed up to their room.

They’d both had long day so they both took a quick bath and got into their pyjamas.

Anne was sat on the bed brushing through her long slightly damp hair.

Olivia was looking at her curiously as Anne braided her hair and tied off her plaits.

“Could you do my hair please?” she asked pulling at the end of one of Anne’s plaits.

“Sure,” beamed Anne as she got out some more hair ties.

Olivia sat in front on Anne and she brushed through and tied Olivia’s hair in two loose plaits.

“Meow!” cried Diana leaping onto Anne’s bed as she finished Olivia’s hair.

Anne flinched away slightly at her sudden appearance.

“Livi, this is my cat Diana, Di, this is my new friend Livi.”

Diana seemed to look at Olivia for a moment as if trying to size her up.

The cat started to walk cautiously towards her on the bed.

Olivia put out one of her hands nervously to pet her.

Diana started to purr loudly as Olivia stroked her.

“I’m glad you two like each other,” beamed Anne as she tied off Olivia’s plaits.

“Ok girls,” chuckled Remus coming into the room, “you two have both had a long day, get some sleep.”

Anne grimaced slightly as Remus passed her a vial of dreamless sleep.

“What’s that for?” asked Olivia looking at the tiny bottle.

“Anne has been having some problems with nightmares,” said Remus, “this helps her sleep better.”

Remus tucked them both into bed carefully.

“Go on Annie,” said Remus, “drink up.”

Anne sighed and downed the vial of potion in one, before getting comfortable on the pillows.

Olivia snuggled up to Anne and was asleep before her head even hit the pillows, she’d had such a long day.

“You look after them for me,” chuckled Remus looking at Diana.

The kneazle that was lying down next to the two girls nodded at him.

“Sleep well girls,” muttered Remus as he turned off the light.


	5. Welsh Dragons, Fairy Wings, and Fluffy Pink Tiaras

Anne had had a dream with a badger and a Welsh flag waving in the wind, the dragon on the flag was breathing real fire.

“You ok Anne?” asked Olivia nervously.

Anne had had the same dream the last two nights, Remus had been trying to get her some more dreamless sleep, but it was more difficult as school was closed.

“I’m fine,” Anne muttered reaching for her diary to write down about the dream with the badger and the flag and the dragon. This could be seriously important; it might help them find out where the Hufflepuff cup was hidden.

Today was the 14th of July, and the last day before they were going to have to start moving the rest of the muggleborns.

“Can we play with Teddy today?” asked Olivia as Anne finished writing in her diary. 

“Teddy moved out yesterday Livi,” said Anne.

The Lupins had moved to the Finch Fletchley’s the day before, so that they could help set up for the arrival of the kids in a few days.

“I’ve got a meeting this morning, so you’ll have to play with Jack for a bit.”

Olivia shrugged and they both got up for breakfast.

“Hey girls,” greeted Sirius as they came downstairs, “what you two up to today?”

“Well we’ve got a meeting this morning, but I was thinking after that that we could watch some Disney films,” said Anne.

“I like princess films,” beamed Olivia.

“So do I,” chuckled Anne as she tucked into her bowl of strawberries. 

“Am I invited to this Disney fest?” asked Sirius.

“Only if you wear a pink fluffy tiara,” said Julian

“Challenge accepted,” said Sirius, “you find the tiara and I’ll wear it.”

After breakfast people started arriving by flu, the kitchen was soon full of people, Irwin, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville, and for some reason that Harry didn’t understand Charlie Weasley.

“Livi,” said Anne, “can you stay and play down here with Julian, Jack and Sirius for a bit?”

“We’ll watch Sleeping Beauty, afterwards right?” asked Olivia.

“Of course,” beamed Anne giving her a huge hug.

They all headed up to Harry’s room to talk.

Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Neville all settled onto Harry’s bed.

Anne and Irwin were sat down leaning against the wall.

Charlie was standing in the middle of the room confused.

“Look, why am I here Ron?” asked Charlie.

“I don’t know Anne asked me to bring you,” shrugged Ron.

“I’ll explain later,” muttered Anne.

Charlie just looked even more confused and leaned casually against the closed door, his arms folded across his chest.

“So,” said Harry, “welcome, we all know why we’re here.”

Charlie lifted his hand slightly.

“Apart from Charlie,” chuckled Harry.

“As of today, we are reforming Dumbledores Army.”

There was cheering from throughout the room.

“Finally!” exclaimed Ron.

“So, what’s the plan then?” asked Neville.

“Well,” said Hermione, “we need you four to take over running it.”

Ron, Ginny, Neville and Irwin looked at each other excitedly.

“Not just recruitment and teaching defence though,” said Anne, “you’ll need to try and protect the other students from the deatheaters that will probably be running the school by September.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Neville.

“Try and get some of the Hufflepuffs involved, in the running too” said Harry.

“Maybe Hannah and Ernie?” suggested Anne.

“I’m sure Anthony will help out too,” said Irwin.

Anne got out her bag of coins and started handing them out.

“These will give you direct contact with me,” said Anne, “we’re going to be needing code names though.”

“They work the same as the coins I gave you in fifth year,” explained Hermione, “but the messages only go through to Anne rather than to everyone in the group.”

All four of them were Monty Python fans, so Ron picked J.C for John Cleese, Irwin was M.P for Michael Palin, Neville was T.J for Terry Jones and Ginny was G.C for Graham Chapman.”

“I think that’s everything for now,” said Harry, “so if you guys could go downstairs the rest of us will join you in a bit.”

Charlie was looking even more confused by the minute as the other four left the room.

“Muffliato,” said Anne casting in the door as Irwin left.

“What the hell is going on!” asked Charlie.

“Welcome to the sub-committee, our mission Tom Must Die, TMD for short,” explained Harry.

“What?” asked Charlie.

“Charlie what do you know about Horcruxes?” asked Anne.

“It contains a piece of someone’s soul right? Some seriously dark magic that.”

“Yes well,” said Hermione, “Voldemort made loads of them.”

“We’re trying to find one, Hufflepuff’s cup,” explained Harry, “Anne said you might be able to help.”

“I’d love to help you guys but I don’t see how,” stuttered Charlie.

“You know about my prophetic dreams?” asked Anne.

“Yeah,” said Charlie.

“Well I think the Horcrux has got something to do with a dragon.”

“A dragon!” screamed Hermione.

Harry took a sharp intake of breath.

“Are you sure Anne?” asked Charlie.

“Hmmm” she nodded, “the dream had a badger and Welsh flag, but the dragon was moving.”

“Well, I think that makes it fairly obvious where its hidden,” said Harry, “Wales.”

“Wales is a big country Harry,” Hermione pointed out, “especially as we have no idea where its hidden.”

“It does make sense though,” muttered Anne, “Helga Hufflepuff is supposed to be from Wales.”

“With any luck all we’re dealing with is a Common Welsh Green,” said Charlie, “they aren’t as dangerous as some of the other dragons.”

“Still going to have trouble tracking it down though,” said Harry.

“So,” asked Harry hopefully, “can you help us?”

The three of them looked at Charlie, without him they didn’t stand a chance.

“I’m taking a year off to help the Order,” Charlie sighed, “I’m due back in Romania next April.”

“So we’ve got till April to find it then,” said Harry.

“When are we leaving for Wales?” asked Hermione.

“We’ve got to get all the muggleborns safe first,” said Anne.

“I’m Bill’s best man,” said Charlie, “I cant miss the wedding.”

“We’ll start getting ready,’ said Hermione, “but if Voldemort hasn’t taken over by then, we’ll leave on the 2nd of August, day after the wedding.”

“If Voldemort takes over before then, we’ll meet in Wales immediately,” said Harry.

“Where in Wales am, I supposed to meet you guys?” chuckled Charlie, “it’s a big country.”

“Lampeter, it’s in Ceredigion,” said Anne remembering the place that Anne had dreamt about in her first ever prophetic dream four years ago.

“We’ll somewhere obvious to meet, a landmark,” said Charlie.

“The war memorial,” said Hermione, “every village and town have one, you can’t miss them.”

“So, if Tom takes over the Ministry before the second, we meet at the war memorial in Lampeter?” confirmed Anne.

They all nodded and headed back downstairs, Neville had already gone back home as he had to help his Gran and Winky get ready for the arrival’s tomorrow.

Ron, Ginny and Irwin were in the sitting room with Jack and Olivia. Olivia had been going through the video tapes to find the princess films and Irwin had been helping her.

“Come on you two,” said Charlie looking at Ron and Ginny, “mum was reluctant to let us leave for this long.”

“Back to wedding hell it is then,” groaned Ron.

“Bye Gin,” grinned Harry giving Ginny a kiss before she left with her brothers.

“I should probably go too,” muttered Hermione, “Mum and Dad are leaving in a few days, I want to spend some time with them.”

“Did you get all the documents in the post?” asked Anne.

“Yep, fourteen passports, flight tickets, and prefilled in customs forms,” nodded Hermione.

“Whoever your contact is Sis, they’re bloody organised,” chuckled Harry.

“See you in a few days Hermione,” said Anne giving her a huge hug.

Anne helped go through the videos and they soon found Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast and the latest film Pocahontas which none of them had watched yet.

“Look what I’ve found,” gloated Julian dancing into the room with a huge box.

“Give me that box!” screamed Sirius following him.

“I found Anne’s dressing up stuff in the attic,” he chuckled Julian and “guess what I found in there?”

Julian fished out a pink fluffy tiara from the box.

“We had a deal Sirius!” he cackled.

“Fine,” grumbled Sirius taking the tiara from Julian and putting it on his head.

“This is possibly the best thing I’ve ever seen,” laughed Harry struggling to breath.

“Should we go get a camera?” suggested Jack.

“I like you’re thinking kid,” chuckled Harry as they legged it from the room

“Can I have a tiara?” asked Olivia.

“Of course,” chuckled Anne, “let’s see if we can find you one.”

By the time that Harry and Jack came back from finding the camera, Julian was wearing a golden crown, and a purple cape. 

Olivia was wearing a pink and silver tiara with matching fairy wings and a fairy wand.

Anne was wearing a fake flower garland of purple flowers and matching fairy wings.

Irwin meanwhile was wearing a silver and blue tiara, with a set of blue fairy wings.

Even Dobby and Kreacher had joined them but whilst Kreacher wasn’t wearing any fancy dress, Dobby had a pair of rainbow fairy wings and a pink ballet tutu that had been Anne’s when she was about three.

“I think we’ll leave them to it,” chuckled Harry once he and Jack had managed to grab a picture.

Harry and Jack had wanted to get out of the room before the first princess film started. Harry spent the day teaching Jack all about how Quidditch worked.

Anne, and Irwin were sat on one of the two sofas with Olivia in between them.

They watched the three films and then watched the Lion King because it was still a little bit early.

“I should get going,” said Irwin checking his watch.

“Don’t go!” begged Olivia trying to grab onto his arm.

“I’m sorry little Livi,” said Irwin giving her a hug before he took off his fairy wings and tiara.

“My little brother and sister will wonder where I am,” he said.

“Hey Livi,” said Anne, “we could read some more Narnia if you want to?”

Olivia seemed uncertain for a moment.

“Ok,” she nodded letting go off Irwin’s arm.

“I’ll see you in a few days Annie,” said Irwin giving Anne a kiss on top of the head.

Anne and Olivia were up in Anne’s room reading The Horse and his Boy. Anne looked up from the book and saw that Olivia was looking slightly nervous again, her fairy wings were beginning to droop.

“There something wrong Livi?”

“When are the other children arriving?” she asked curiously.

“The nineteenth,” said Anne “that’s not for five whole days.”

“Do you think they’ll think I’m a freak?” she asked.

“No,” Anne assured her, “they’re all magical too.”

“What if I don’t make any friends?”

“You’ll be fine Livi,” chuckled Anne, before turning back to the book.

“Anne?”

“Hmm?” Anne muttered looking up from the book.

“Are you going to be leaving?” 

“Why do you ask?” said Anne.

“Because you’re not going back to school,” said Olivia, “Julian mentioned it.”

“So that should mean I’m not leaving though,” Anne chuckled.

“If you’re not going back to school you’re doing something else,” Olivia reasoned.

“It’s to do with Tom isn’t it?”

“You know little one,” smiled Anne, “you are a tiny bit too clever for your own good.”

“You said there was no such thing as too clever,” said Olivia confused.

“So I did,” Anne beamed.

“So it is something to do with Tom?”

“Yeah,” muttered Anne, “Harry, Hermione, Charlie and I have a very important job to do, and its to do with Tom.”

“What if you don’t come back?” sobbed Olivia.

“Livi,” said Anne firmly, “listen to me, do you trust me?”

Olivia nodded slightly through her tears.

“I promise that I am going to do my hardest to come back safe and sound,” said Anne pulling her in for a hug.

“Tell you what,” said Anne releasing her from the hug.

Both of them were crying now, tears running right down their cheeks.

“I don’t know how long me and Harry are going to gone for, but I want you to look after this room for me and look after little Diana.”

Olivia nodded again.

“Diana’s a kneazle so she’s very protective, you two are going to look after each other for me alright?”

“Ok,” Olivia muttered.

“Now then,” said Anne drying the tears off her face, “do you want me to introduce you to the legendary music of The Seekers?”

Olivia nodded enthusiastically and Anne played the music on her Walkman.

Eventually, they both knew they had to get to bed, tomorrow operation Dunkirk as the Finch Fletchley’s called it began.

Anne looked quickly at the calendar over her bed before she went to sleep.

15th Longbottom’s  
16th Potger’s  
17th Lyall & Legolas  
18th Finch Fletchley’s  
19th Scamander’s  
20th Grimmauld Place


	6. Operation Dunkirk- Phase Matilda

And so, the week of madness began. The first day, Anne stayed at home with Jack and Olivia whilst Sirius and Landon got the first six muggleborns to the Longbottom’s. The other five days Anne was going to be helping.

Fortunately, the first day went well, the children were safely collected from their families and delivered to the Longbottom’s.

The second day Anne had her nightmares again and woke up at four thirty in the morning.

She checked that Olivia was still sleeping soundly, before getting out of bed. 

They had to collect nine muggleborns and get them to the airport in time for the flight at four o’clock this afternoon.

She double checked the documents that Percy had sent in the post the day before. If the Grangers and the Potgers handed in these at passports when they got to Australia. The Australian Ministry of Magic were expecting them and if they handed in these documents, the people at passports were going to put them in contact with the Ministry officials in Australia.

She got dressed without turning the light on in a pair of jeans and a light pink tee shirt. She had plaited her hair so many times she didn’t even the light on to do her hair.

She gave Olivia a quick kiss on the forehead before she headed downstairs with the paperwork and list of addresses.

“You ready kiddo?” asked Sirius as they both pulled on muggle jackets in the hallway.

“Yeah,” nodded Anne.

“Lets get going then,” he nodded.

They had three children to collect from their families before the flight, the Grangers and the Potegers were getting another two each and Landon was picking up two children from Wales.

“So where we going today then?” asked Sirius.

“Um Yorkshire,” said Anne double checking her list, “and then Manchester twice.”

“Two from Manchester?” asked Sirius.

“One of the boys is from Scotland, so his parents have put him on a train down to Manchester and we’re picking him up from there.”

“Ok,” muttered Sirius as he started to head off for Yorkshire.

When they got to Yorkshire, they stopped outside a stone cottage on the outskirts of a small village.

It was still only seven o’clock in the morning, but the sun was rising over the dales.

Anne got out of the car and went to knock on the cottage door.

“Hi Anne,” beamed Susan Pegden a third year Ravenclaw girl who was friends with Brenda.

Susan was halfway through a slice of toast and had only half done her hair but there was two suitcases and a backpack standing ready to go in the hallway.

“Come in for some breakfast,” asked Mrs. Pegden who was making eggs and bacon with toast.

“We don’t have much time,” stammered Anne.

“Yeah but our Susie won’t be ready for another twenty minutes,” pointed out Mr Pegden.

“Oh alright,” shrugged Sirius as he tucked into a generous plate of bacon and eggs and a cup of tea whilst Susan finished getting ready to leave.

“Just in case we haven’t already got the point across,” said Mrs Pegden, “we are so grateful for everything you’re doing for our Susie.”

“That’s alright,” chuckled Sirius.

After a quick breakfast, Sirius went around the house putting some basic wards up around the Pegden’s house in case the Ministry came looking for Susan.

“Good luck Susie,” said Mr Pegden once they had loaded her bags into the boot.

“You’ve got your wand?” asked Mrs Pegden.

“Of course,” said Susan shaking her head.

“See you when this is all over then,” said Mr Pegden giving her one last hug before she got in the car.

They got to Manchester by just before nine o’clock and picked another muggleborn up from their house and packed the car.

“Right,” said Sirius getting back in the car which was getting fuller by the minute, “one more stop and then off to Aussie land.”

They drove to the train station where there was a fifteen-year-old Gryffindor boy with a backpack and a suitcase.

“You’re Trevor, right?” asked Anne getting out of the car.

“Yeah,” he nodded, “you’re Harry’s sister?”

“Yes,” beamed Anne.

“Ok then,” said Sirius as he loaded the last bag into the boot, “its ten o’clock, we’re meeting the Grangers and the Potgers at Heathrow at two o’clock.”

“Everyone got their passports?” asked Sirius.

“Yep!” said the three kids fishing them out of their backpacks.

“The Potgers have the tickets and the customs forms, so we need to get a move on.”

They managed to get to Heathrow with an hour to spare and had a quick lunch at the airport before the others arrived.

Once everyone arrived, they went through passports and security and then headed for the correct gate.

“This is from my contact,” said Anne handing Keith the paperwork as they waited to board, “give these in at passports when you get there, and the Ministry representatives will be there to welcome you.”

“Bye Mum, Dad” sobbed Hermione hugging her parents.

“We’ll be ok love,” said Mrs Granger also crying.

“You just look after yourself alright?” asked Mr Granger.

Hermione nodded slightly.

“The 4:00 flight to Sydney Australia will begin boarding in a few moments,” said a voice down the tanoy system.

“Good luck,” said Landon as he hugged some of the kids goodbye.

“Let us know when you get there yeah?” asked Anne, “use the coin.”

Brenda nodded and gave Anne one last hug before they went to line up to board.

Sirius, Anne, Hermione and Landon watched through the window nervously as they boarded the plane and the plane took off from the ground.

They were out of the country safe, and nobody had got caught or hurt in the process.

“Thank Merlin for that,” muttered Sirius as they all headed back to their cars.

They had now managed to get eighteen of the muggleborns into safety, over the next four days they had just over forty more to sort out.

“How it go?” asked Julian as Sirius, Hermione and Anne flopped themselves down at the dinner table.

“Well we’re still, here aren’t we?” asked Sirius, “if it hadn’t gone well, we probably would all be dead.”

“Mistress Anne is not eating her food!” said Kreacher, “I has made her favourite lasagne.”

“Eat something kiddo,” prompted Sirius as Anne stared at her plate of food.

“What if something goes wrong Sirius?” she asked as she played with the pasta with her fork.

“They’ll be fine sis,” said Harry as he ate his dinner.

“Look five more days and this will all be over,” said Julian.

Anne nodded slightly and got up from the table leaving her food still completely untouched.

Anne ran up to her room and fell onto her bed head falling onto the pillows.

Knock, knock, knock.

“I’ll just be a minute Livi,” said Anne lifting her head from the pillows for a second.

“Hey there Annie,” said Irwin softly sitting down on the bed next to her.

“What’s got my auburn locked goddess so upset then?”

“What if we got caught?” she sobbed, “we’d all die!”

“It’ll be ok Annie I promise, the plans watertight,” he assured her.

“Come here Annie,” he said opening his rms wide.

“You’re going to be ok,” he said softly as he stroked her hair.

“Want me to stay here tonight?” he asked once Anne had started to calm down.

“Livi,” Anne stammered.

“She likes me,” he chuckled.

Anne nodded slightly as Irwin continued to stroke her hair.

“Anne you ok?” asked a small voice from the doorway.

Anne gave Olivia a watery smile.

“Come here little princess,” said Irwin.

Olivia rushed over to the bed and joined them in a huge hug.

“Before you know it Annie this is all going to be over,” he chuckled.

“Yeah but then there’s Tom,” she said still crying slightly.

“You have got a point there,” muttered Irwin.

“Anne?” asked Olivia after a while.

“Hmmm?” she muttered as Olivia leant into them.

“Can we listen to The Seekers?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” said Irwin as he waved his wand and the music started blaring.

Anne, and Irwin eventually fell asleep their arms around each other, and Olivia was fast asleep between them leaning into them.


	7. Operation Dunkirk- Phase Legolas

“Annie,” muttered Irwin, shaking her slightly.

“Hmmm?” she mumbled drowsily.

“We need to get going, Dad and you have four kids to sort out today,” he whispered trying not to wake up Olivia.

Anne didn’t feel like she’d slept so well in weeks.

Anne pulled herself out of bed and put on a fresh tee-shirt and jeans before redoing her hair in their plaits.  
Irwin and Anne quickly flued over to the Scamanders.

“Anne!!!” screamed Aislynn as she arrived in the sitting room.

“Slow down there poppet,” said Landon pulling Aislynn of off her.

“When’s my new roommate arriving?” she asked excitedly

“Two days,” said Landon as he found his car keys.

“Hey there, my little flower fairy,” beamed Irwin as he came back through the flu.

Irwin dusted the ash off of himself and lifted his little sister straight in the air.

“I’ll be back tonight Aish,” said Landon as he and Anne headed towards the car.

“So what we got today?” asked Landon as Anne got into the front of the car.

Anne noticed that Mr. Weasley had been using expanding charms on Landon’s car, because the front seat had been stretched into a park bench to seat two people, there was enough room for five people in the back, and there was enough space for at least four or five trunks in the boot of the car.

“Yes, I know,” chuckled Landon as Anne looked around the car.

“Arthur’s been working his magic again, it’s made family outings so much easier though, and if he hadn’t, we would never have been able to fit three children and their luggage in here.”

“So, where we headed first?”

“A pair of brothers in Wales,” she said checking her list, “a six year old girl from Bristol and one more boy from Oxford.”

“And the safe house is?”

“A flat in London.”

“Just out of curiosity are you going to tell me who this person is?”

“You’ll find out later,” said Anne, “but you can’t tell anyone!”

Landon nodded in understanding.

They went to Swansea first to pick up the Roberts brothers.

David and Tim were already standing outside the house with their trunks. Tim was a fourteen-year-old Gryffindor who was meant to be going into his fourth year, and his younger brother David had only just turned eleven and should have been at starting at Hogwarts in September.

Their parents were waiting with them, Mrs Robert’s was still wearing her dressing gown.

“You got your wand Timmy?” asked Mr Roberts placing his hands on his son’s shoulders.

“Yes Da,” said Tim pulling it out of his pocket.

“I just wish we could have got you one in time,” he sighed looking at his younger son.

“He’ll be fine,” said Landon assuringly.

“You got kids?” asked Mr Roberts in an offended tone.

“Yes I do actually,” said Landon, “four, I’d do anything for them.”

“As would I,” he said threateningly.

“Mike,” muttered Mrs Richards.

“Its alright, please believe me, this is the right thing your sons will be much safer this way.”

Mr Roberts gave in grudgingly as Landon put up the wards around the Roberts house.

They helped load the boys two trunks into the boot of the car and then they got in the back together.

“Ok next?” asked Landon as Anne looked at the list.

“Juliet Smith, Bristol, aged 6.”

“Lets go then,” said Landon turning the key in the ignition.

Two hours later they were at the Smith’s house, Tim and David decided to stay in the car.

Anne walked up to the door and pressed the doorbell firmly.

A very anxious man answered the door and was looking around frantically.

“Are you with those phoenix people?” he whispered.

Anne nodded.

The man beckoned for them to come in and Landon and Anne went into the house. In the corridor there was two pink suitcases, a hello kitty backpack and a ragdoll.

“Are you sure there isn’t any other way?” Mr Smith begged, as they walked into the sitting room where a little girl with blonde bunchies was sitting wearing her coat and shoes

“I’m sorry but there isn’t.”

“Juliet darling come here,” said Mr Smith trying to hold back his tears, “these people are going to take very good care of you alright?”

Juliet nodded, her father had explained everything to her a week ago when Remus and Tonks had first visited.

“Take good care of her,” said Mr Smith as he handed Anne Juliet’s hand, “she’s all I’ve got left since her mother died.”

Anne put Juliet in the back of the car in her car seat whilst Tim and David loaded the car and Landon put up the wards around Mr Smith’s house as a precautionary measure.

Mr Smith was waving as he cried whilst the car drove away from the house.

“Only one more stop and then I’ll be taking you all home,” beamed Landon.

They stopped at a service station for sandwiches and then drove to a house in Oxford.

Anne went and pressed the doorbell.

“Mrs Richards?” she asked as a woman opened the door.

“It’s Dr Richards actually,” she sniffed with her nose slightly in the air.

“Sorry um Dr Richards,” stammered Anne, “we’re here to pick up Brian.”

“Oh yes of course,” said Mrs Richards standing away from the doorway.

“Brian, its time dear!” she called up the stairs.

“Coming Mum!” he called racing down the stairs, his father following him with a heavy school trunk.

“Hi Anne!” beamed Brian Richards who was a Ravenclaw and also meant to be starting his fourth year.

“Hi Brian,” grinned Anne.

“Meet my parents, Dr. Michael and Dr. Lucy Richards,” said Brian.

“Both your parents are Drs.?” asked Landon slightly confused, as he shook the Richard’s hands.

“They’re university lecturers,” explained Brian, “Dad teaches medieval history and Mum teaches 19th century literature.”

“Mum, Dad, this is Anne Potter,” Brian continued.

“Brian's told us so many stories about you,” enthused Mr Richards, “apparently you killed a werewolf?”

“Guilty as charged,” admitted Anne.

“We would like to thank you for protecting our son,” said Mrs Richards.

“Can we offer you any money?” asked Mr Richards pulling out his wallet.

Anne refused the money, she had deposited enough money from her and Harry’s immense vault to cover expenses for each of the children for a year, if she had to get out more, they’d get round to it.

“Got your wand?” asked Mrs Richards.

“How could I forget it Mum,” said Brian shaking his head.

“Well get on with you then,” said Mr Richards giving his son one last hug.

Landon put up the wards, whilst Mr Richards and Brian loaded the trunk into the boot.

“You have got to be kidding me?” groaned Tim as Brian got into the back of the car.

“Is there a problem boy’s?” asked Landon turning around in his seat.

“We and Timothy don’t get on,” sighed Brian.

“It’s Tim,” spat Tim.

“Well,” said Landon, “whether you two like it or not, you are going to have to learn how to get on. You are going to be living together and sharing a room for Merlin knows how long.”

Landon started up the engine and Tim and Brian glared at each other for at least an hour.

“This is bloody ridiculous,” muttered David who was sitting between them.

“I am not sharing a room with that posh swat!” growled Tim.

Brian just stared out the window as though he had never heard anything.

“Well unless you want me to turn this car around and take you home, you’re going to have to,” Landon pointed out not taking his eyes off of the road.

“Fine,” grumbled Tim.

Brian was still staring out the window, Tim wondered how long he was going to ignore him for.

“Brian?” said Tim cautiously after he had calmed down slightly and started to see sense, “if we’re going to live together we might as well be friends.”

“You started it,” muttered Brian.

“When was that?” asked Tim.

“Calling me a posh twat of a wanker who you wouldn’t be in the same house as if they paid you,” Brian pointed out finally stopping from looking out the window.

“When was that?” asked Tim trying to think back.

“First day on the train,” said Brian, “you were trying to show yourself up to one of the girls in the compartment.”

“Oh yeah,” muttered Tim grinning sheepishly.

“I only opened my mouth once and you called me a posh twat of a wanker to the whole compartment,” said Brian.

“Sorry,” said Tim earnestly.

“And I’m sorry I reported you to Flitwick for cheating on that test in class in first year.”

“That was you?” asked Tim raising his eyebrows incredulously.

“Sorry I probably deserved it,” said Tim.

“Quits?” asked Tim holding out his hand around his younger brother.

Brian sighed slightly before smiling.

“Quits,” agreed Brian.

“Well thank Merlin that’s all sorted,” said Landon, “and for future reference Tim and Brian, don’t use the w word in front of Juliet.”

“What’s a wanker?” asked Juliet curiously.

The whole car burst into spontaneous laughter.

After another hour of driving Landon parked his car on a road of houses in London, many of which had been converted into flats.

“Landon,” said Anne urgently, “you cannot tell anyone what has happened today, especially not the Weasley’s.”

Landon nodded in understanding even if he was slightly confused.

Anne got out of the car whilst Landon helped Juliet out of her car seat.

“Hi Perc,” beamed Anne as Percy pulled her in for a hug.

“Hey Anne,” said Percy looking around frantically as he released Anne from the hug.

“Who’s he?” asked Percy looking suspiciously at Landon.

“Landon Scamander, Rolf and Irwin’s Dad.”

Percy seemed to be satisfied with this

“We should get this lot inside,” said Percy helping with the trunks as Landon got Juliet’s suitcases.

They carried the bags up to a flat on the fourth floor, where Penelope was already waiting for them.

“Landon,” said Anne once they were all in the safety of the flat, “this is Percy and his girlfriend Penelope Clearwater.”

“You’re Percy Weasley,” said Landon in shock, “the one that Molly’s always crying about.”

Percy blushed slightly.

Anne ignored the comment that Landon had just said.

“Percy, Penelope, these are Tim and David Roberts, Brian Richards and Juliet Smith,” she said indicating each of the children.

“Thank god you all got here safely,” said Penelope as she gave Anne a quick hug.

“Thank you for everything you’re doing Anne,” said Penelope whilst Percy nodded.

“I don’t know why people keep thanking me,” muttered Anne pulling at one of the plaits, “I’m not doing all of the work.”

“You’re doing most of it,” chuckled Landon, “and it was your idea.”

“And if you hadn’t the genius idea of coming to me,” said Percy, “this could have ended terribly.”

“I need to get home,” said Anne nervously, “you kids ok?”

“Yeah!” said David putting his thumbs up.

Brian nodded his head briefly, looking away from Percy’s collection of books.

“They’ll be fine Anne,” chuckled Landon as he led her away from the flat.

“Bye Perc Pen,” waved Anne as they left.

Landon ushered Anne away from the flat and they both got in the car to get back to Grimmauld Place.

“Bye Landon,” said Anne getting out of the car.

“Bye Anne,” said Landon before starting the drive home.

Anne walked into the house and dropped her jacket off quickly before trudging up to her bedroom and falling asleep fully dressed before her head hit the pillows still wearing her trainers.

“You’ve been pushing yourself too hard,” said Julian chuckling slightly.

He had seen her coming into her room from his room across the hall, and she had looked like a walking zombie.

He pulled off her trainers and tucked her in properly under a blanket before leaving her to get some sleep.


	8. Operation Dunkirk- The Final Phase

“Meow!” yowled Diana pouncing on her.

“What?” mumbled Anne who had been in the middle of a dream about a dragon.

“Naughty kitty,” scolded Olivia lifting Diana off of Anne’s chest.

“You woke up Annie!”

Diana started purring in Olivia’s arms.

“It’s difficult to be angry at her when she’s so ruddy cute isn’t it?” chuckled Anne.

Today was the last day of Operation Dunkirk, they had managed to safely move fifty muggleborns, and there was only eight left to be collected and brought to Grimmauld Place.

“You’ve got to admit Livi, Di makes a great alarm clock.”

“Are the other children coming today?” asked Olivia.

“Yeah,” nodded Anne as she brushed out her plaits.

“Can you do my hair before you go?” begged Olivia.

Anne checked her watch, she had to leave with Sirius in twenty minutes.

“Quickly,” Anne sighed as she started to brush through Olivia’s bed hair.

She brushed Olivia’s hair into two little plaits and then got dressed in a pair of jeans and a rugby jersey before putting her wand in her back pocket. 

She had been practising her wandless magic when she could find the time, and she could now do everything that she could do with a wand without a wand, she only really used her wand out of habit.

“We’ll be back soon Livi,” Anne promised before she and Sirius headed out the door.

Harry and Julian were having to help get the rooms ready for the other muggleborns arriving today.

“So, who we got to pick up?” asked Sirius checking the list.

“Well Landon’s getting most of them,” said Anne.

“We need to pick up the Creevey’s from Somerset and an eight-year-old boy Kevin from Kent.”

“Ok then,” muttered Sirius, “so we pick up little Kevin, and then we got Colin and Dennis.”

Anne settled into the front of the car and had to try and stop herself from falling back to sleep, it was only just gone six o’clock in the morning.

An hour later they pulled out in front of Kevin Mason’s house.

Anne got out of the car to ring the doorbell as Sirius locked up the car.

“Hello?” asked a tall black man in his early twenties with a deep voice answering the door.

“Hi,” said Anne, “are you Mr. Mason?”

“You here about Kev?” he asked.

Anne nodded as Sirius joined her.

“You’d best come in,” said the young man standing away from the door.

“Kev!” he called up the stairs as Sirius and Anne came in and they shut the door.

“Kev! They’re here!”

“Coming Fred!” called Kevin over the bannisters.

“I’ve always wondered if there was something weird about my little brother,” chuckled Fred.

“One time not long after our Mum died when he was about four, I left him playing in front of the tele, when I came back five minutes later he was sitting casually on top of the roof, I had to get a ladder out to get him back down.”

“Was he alright?” asked Anne nervously.

“Oh yeah, he was having a great time, started crying when I tried taking him down from the roof.”

There was a thumping out in the corridor.

“That’ll be Kev,” said Fred shaking his head slightly.

They went out into the corridor and Kevin was trying to lug a suitcase that was bigger than he was down the stairs.

“Need a hand little bro?” asked Fred chuckling from the bottom of the stairs.

“It’s alright,” groaned Kevin, “I’ve got it.”

Kevin tried pulling the suitcase a bit further down the suitcase by placing it in front of him.

Suddenly the suitcase started to crash its way down the stairs, and Kevin was still stood at the top of the stairs watching its progress in shock.

“Arresto Momentum!” called Sirius having pulled out his wand and pointing it at the suitcase.

The suitcase slowed down and Sirius carefully levitated it down to the bottom of the stairs.

“Impressive,” muttered Fred shaking his head.

“Awesome!” exclaimed Kevin his eyes wide in amazement.

“You got everything Kev?” asked Fred as Kevin brought down his backpack.

“Yep!” said Kevin.

“You gonna be good Kev?” he asked putting two thumbs up.

“Yep!” laughed Kevin putting his two thumbs up.

“I’ll see you at the end of this nightmare ok?” said Fred giving his little brother a hug.

“Ok,” he muttered.

“Try not to get yourself hurt, no climbing on roofs or falling down staircases or anything.”

“He’ll be fine,” assured Sirius, “I’ll keep an eye on him.”

Fred helped Sirius load Kevin’s suitcase and backpack into the boot of the car, and Kevin got in the back.

Fred stood in front of the house, waving until his little brother was out of site.

“Ok let’s go pick up the crazy Creeveys and then we’ll get back to the house.”

“So, kiddo” Sirius asked as they headed to Somerset, “do you think we’ve got another Gryffindor on our hands?”

“We’ll have to wait and see,” chuckled Anne, “but you’ve certainly got the guts haven’t you Kevin?”

“Whats a Gryffindor?” asked Kevin excitedly.

“You know about schoolhouses?” asked Anne.

“Yeah they have them at some really posh schools.”

“Yeah well,” chortled Sirius, “Hogwarts is one of those posh schools. If all goes to plan in a couple of years, you’ll be going there.”

“Well at Hogwarts,” explained Anne, “you get sorted by personality traits. I’m a Ravenclaw which is the house of the wise and the creative.”

“I however am a Gryffindor!” beamed Sirius, “the house of daring and chivalry.”

“That sounds awesome!” said Kevin, “are there any other houses?”

“Well there’s Hufflepuff,” said Anne, “they’re hard working and loyal.”

“Sounds a bit boring,” grumbled Kevin.

“You’re right there,” chortled Sirius.

“They’re good kind people,” explained Anne, “not everyone can be as brave as Gryffindors.”

“Also,” said Anne glaring at Sirius, “Dora is a Hufflepuff, and she’s the least boring person I know.”

“Fair enough,” nodded Sirius in agreement.

“And then there’s just one more,” finished Anne.

“Slytherin,” spat Sirius.

“There is nothing wrong with them,” said Anne firmly.

Sirius gave her a significant look.

“There is nothing wrong with the majority of them,” Anne corrected herself.

“What’s wrong with Slytherins?” asked Kevin.

“They’re a bunch of pureblood, pretentious, cunning bast.”

Anne nudged Sirius in the ribs firmly.

“Snobs,” finished Sirius.

“They don’t sound very nice,” muttered Kevin.

“They’re not,” said Sirius.

A few hours later they pulled up in front of a cottage in Somerset.

“Anne!” yelled Dennis as they parked the car. 

Dennis was hanging halfway out the window and waving at them.

“Hello Dennis,” said Anne shaking her head slightly as Sirius and Kevin got of the car.

“Mum,” called Dennis going back inside, “Anne’s here.”

Mrs Creevey came rushing out of the house to greet them.

“Thank you so much for coming,” she beamed pulling Anne and Sirius into a hug.

“That’s ok,” choked Anne as she was half crushed in a hug.

“I’m sorry Henry can’t be here,” she said as they headed into the house, “he’s got his milk round.”

“The boys are so excited,” said Mrs Creevey, “Harry’s told them all about how great you are.”

Sirius chuckled slightly, he was definitely going to have a right old time living in a house with ten muggleborns, two of which were the Creevey’s and two house elves. They would be lucky if they all made it out in one piece.

“Hi Anne,” called Colin as he started to try to lug his trunk down the stairs.

“Hey Colin,” waved Anne as Sirius went to help Colin with the trunk.

“This is Kevin,” said Sirius proudly, “our latest Gryffindor in training.”

“Kevin,” said Anne, “Collin and Dennis are both Gryffindors too.”

“And probably excitable and energetic for the whole house put together,” said Mrs Creevey as she came out of the kitchen.

Mrs Creevey was carrying several paper bags which were full of bacon sandwiches for the road, as well as some apples and packets of crisps.

They loaded the two school trunks into the car and finally headed back to London. Sirius didn’t know how he was going to cope, bringing Harry and Anne had been fine, there had only been two of them and Remus and helped him. But this time there was ten kids and he only had Julian to help him. And the worst part was going to be the fact that once Voldemort took over, none of the muggleborns would ever be able to leave the house.

They got back to Grimmauld Place at just gone two o’clock. Within seconds of them unloading the luggage from the car, Landon arrived with the other five muggleborns. A Ravenclaw Rachael who was supposed to be going into sixth year, Nigel and Richard who were best friends and Gryffindors and were both meant to be going into their second year, Chloe a Hufflepuff girl meant to be going into her third year and Emma who had only just turned eleven and should have been starting Hogwarts that year.

There was a mass accumulation of assorted trunks, suitcases and backpacks in the hallway as they tried to sort out the rooms.

“Ok!” Sirius called over all the cacophony of all the kids.

“Julian can you get Jack and Olivia, we need out sort out room allocations.”

Everyone left their bags in the hallway and they all went into the living room.

“Ok,” said Julian trying to assemble some form of order, “we’ve got four empty rooms.”

“Five,” interrupted Harry, “Hermione and I are moving in with you until after Bill’s wedding.”

“Livi’s already in my room,” said Anne.

“So, nine people five rooms,” muttered Sirius jotting that down.

“Anyone want already know someone they want to share with?” asked Harry.

Colin put his hand in the air.

“I want to go with Dennis,” said Colin.

“You two can have my room,” said Harry, “we can turn the double bed into two singles.”

“You two are going to love it,” said Sirius, “it’s Gryffindor mad!”

“Anyone else?” asked Julian as he wrote that down.

“I want to go with Nigel,” said Richard.

Nigel and Richard had been best friends since the first day that they had met on the train last year.

“Can me and Kevin go in together?” asked Jack.

Kevin and Jack had only known each other five minutes but had already discovered that they both loved Chelsea football team and they both hated maths.

That only left Chloe, Emma and Rachael.

“One of you can have your own room but two of you are going to have to share,” said Hermione.

“Do we have to flip a coin or something?” asked Sirius.

“No,” interjected Chloe, “I want to share.”

“I’ll go in with you,” said Emma.

“That ok with you Rach?” asked Anne.

Rachael merely shrugged; she didn’t care what happened as long as she was left alone when she wanted to read.

“Ok gang,” said Sirius, “you’ve got your roommates now let’s get those bags moved.”

The first thing Sirius did was turn the double beds into two singles so that it was easier for them all to share rooms.

Colin and Dennis went in Harry’s room, and Jack and Kevin went in the room which used to be Sirius parents. Chloe and Emma went in the room which was usually Remus and Tonk’s, and Nigel and Richard went in the other spare room on the fourth floor. 

Rachael was in what was usually Teddy’s nursery, but the crib had been replaced by a single bed. Quite honestly though Rachael didn’t care if there was Winnie the Pooh wallpaper, if she got given her privacy when she wanted it.

And so, finally all sixty muggle borns were safely moved into the safety of their new homes. Anne slept soundly that night knowing that Operation Dunkirk as the Finch Fletchley’s had named it had been finished successfully without anyone getting hurt of caught.


	9. Welcome to the House of Fun

Not two days after everyone moved in did the war begin. Pranks Wars! 

Sirius was trying to do his hair one morning and was liberally applying the usual hair gel to his sleek black curls and his hands got stuck in his hair, somebody had added super glue into his hair gel.

Sirius retaliated by booby trapping the Creevey’s room with a bucket of dung bombs. But the Colin and Dennis tried claiming that it wasn’t them and then put fake bugs in his breakfast.

Unfortunately, the plastic bugs didn’t end up in Sirius’s porridge, but Chloe’s.

Within a few days it was all out war, pranks, water guns, dung bombs the lot. Within a few days, Kreacher and Dobby banned stink bombs as they were stinking out the house, so these were quickly changed to water bombs which didn’t make a mess or a foul smell.

There was only two safe zones in the whole house, Anne’s room because firstly Anne and Olivia hadn’t pranked anyone and didn’t want to get involved, and secondly Anne’s room had become a sanctuary of quiet when people wanted to get away from the madness of the house. 

The only other safe zone was Rachael’s room. The moment that Sirius had booby trapped Dennis and Colin’s door, a sign had appeared on Racheal’s door.

This is a prank free zone. No dung bombs, no booby traps no fanged frizbees. If you wish to enter please knock, Rachael.

Just because Rachael had put this sign up on the door, the Creeveys with help from Sirius tried going into her room that night. They were planning on putting whipped cream in her hair.

The second they opened the door however the three of them were thrown back from the door by a knockback jinx and they had set off a caterwauling charm. Rachael had warded her doors against unwelcome visitors.

“I warned you,” said Rachael sitting up in bed as she turned off the caterwauling charm, and then closed her door using her wand and going straight back to sleep.

After that nobody had even dared to prank Rachael’s room, not even Sirius.

Kevin and Jack were both amazed, they were both new to the magical world, but it wasn’t just that, this house was just so crazy and fun. If you pranked someone, you wouldn’t get in trouble or punished, you would just get pranked back, even the adults Julian and Sirius were joining, it was so much fun.

Eventually two teams were formed, Jack, Kevin, Chloe, Emma and Julian all worked together with the occasional help from Rachael or Hermione. 

The other team was led by Sirius, and he was joined by Colin, Dennis, Nigel, Richard and Harry.

Dobby would sometimes help, but Olivia, Anne and Kreacher were staying well out of it.

Every now and again they would call a truce and play a huge game of hide and seek. Grimmauld Place was such a huge house and there was so many places to hide that it was fun even for the older ones like Rachael as there was so many crazy places to hide.

One afternoon, there was a very long game of hide and seek, Sirius had been searching for hours but he just couldn’t find Emma. He had found all the others half an hour ago but Emma seemed to have disappeared and the others wouldn’t help him find her.

Eventually Sirius was looking through the kitchen for what felt like the fifth time still looking for Emma, when he thought that he could see a shoelace hanging down slightly from the fireplace.

He headed over and it turned out that Chloe and Rachael had somehow managed to hide Emma in the fireplace because she was quite skinny, and then they had gone to hide in one the kitchen cupboards quickly before their time ran out.

“I know you’re up there,” chuckled Sirius as he leaned down by the fireplace.

There was a light chuckling.

“No, I’m not,” an echoey voice chuckled.

“How did they even get you up there,” Sirius muttered as he helped pull a very sooty Emma out from the fireplace.

“I don’t think you want to know,” said Rachael shaking her head.

When they reached September they were all going to have to hit the books, Julian and Sirius were going to have to try and make sure that they all stayed on top of their studies, as they didn’t know how long they would all be staying and they didn’t want anyone falling behind when they eventually went back to Hogwarts. But as for now, there was still another month until September so let the havoc continue until then.

Anne and Hermione spent a lot of the time in the lead up to Bill’s wedding packing Hermione’s handbag which had an undetectable extension charm on it. They put the same charm on Anne’s backpack in case they ever got separated. The backpack for now was within the handbag.

Hermione and Anne up late one night, Olivia was sitting on Anne’s bed watching in interest.  
Hermione was checking items off a list as Anne found a packed them, they were leaving in a few days now.

“Tent?”

“Check,” said Anne as she put it in the handbag.

“Dittany?”

“Check,” said Anne as she put a tiny bottle of dittany in the bag.

“Burn protection salve?” They were worried that if they were going to be facing a dragon they might be needing some help when it came to the fire part.

“Check.”

“Map of Wales?”

“Check,” said Anne folding it away and putting it in the bag.

“Divination supplies,” sighed Hermione, glaring at the pile of assorted tarot cards, crystal balls and dream interpretation manuals.

“You can scoff if you like Hermione,” said Anne as she packed them, “but if it wasn’t for divination we’d be clueless as to where we were going.”

“Books?” asked Hermione.

“Could you be more specific?” asked Anne indicating the several towers of books they were planning on taking.

“We’ll come back to those,” she nodded laughing slightly.

Hermione grumbled slightly as Anne packed her crystal ball carefully.

“Socks?” asked Hermione hitting the clothes section.

“Seven pairs each,” said Anne as she packed twenty four pairs of socks.

Charlie had somehow managed to smuggle his clothes to them from out of the laundry right under his Mum’s nose that afternoon.

“Pants?”

“Yep,” said Anne packing twenty-four pairs of pants.

“Jeans?”

“Three pairs each,” nodded Anne as she packed them.

This went for a while, they had to check they had everything from four toothbrushes and washbags to a runes dictionary. 

They had also packed enormous amounts of toilet paper and enough canned and dried food to last them at least a few months. They might be going camping for months on end, but they wanted to be as prepared as possible. They didn’t want to have to go to the supermarket every other day.

They were halfway through packing several huge bags of pasta into the bag and Olivia was still watching with interest as they packed yet more into that tiny evening bag.

Suddenly there was a knocking at the door.

“For Gods sake,” muttered Hermione, “its two o’clock in the morning.”

“We’re a bit busy in here!” called Anne.

“This is important!” called Colin.

“What could be so important at this time in the morning,” said Anne shaking her head as she went to answer the door.

Colin and Dennis were standing in the corridor with beams a mile wide on both of their faces.

“We need your help with something,” whispered Dennis as he ushered them downstairs.

Anne followed them downstairs deeply confused Olivia holding onto her hand, Hermione had a feeling she might know what was going on though.

They walked into the sitting room which was pitch black.

“Is this some kind of prank?” asked Anne with her hands on her hips.

“Happy Birthday!” 

The lights suddenly came on and the whole house was gathered in the sitting room in their pyjamas.

“Merlin you’re right,” muttered Anne laughing slightly.

She had been so busy getting ready for their trip she had forgotten that today was her birthday and that her and Harry were now of age.

“Happy Birthday Sis,” chuckled Harry pulling his sister into a huge hug.

“Happy Birthday Harry,” she laughed.

“Happy Birthday my gorgeous girl!” said Irwin getting up from the sofa where he had been sitting with Julian.

“Irwin!” Anne screamed as he lifted her in the air.

They had all been so busy since they the muggleborns had been moved into the safe houses that Anne hadn’t seen Irwin or Remus in over a week.

“I hope you’re just as happy to see me,” chuckled Remus.

“What are you both doing here,” stammered Anne as Irwin put her back down, “and at this time in the morning.”

“We’re here to see you sweetheart,” said Remus pulling her in for a hug and tucking a stray lock of her hair back behind her ear.

“But its half past two in the morning!” Anne pointed out.

“We’re having an all-day party,” explained Julian.

“Now I know its not traditional but this year we’re doing presents before anything else,” said Sirius as he ushered Harry and Anne over to the huge piles of presents.

Everyone was waiting eagerly for them to start opening their presents.

Everyone in the house had given her something. Chloe and Emma had been busy in the kitchen with Kreacher who had been teaching them how to bake, so they had made Harry and Anne huge tins of chocolate chip biscuits.

Rachael had helped Jack, Kevin and Olivia to make them both cards, and Emma had helped Olivia make Anne a bright pink friendship bracelet out of spare wool.

The Potgers had sent Anne a stuffed koala teddy bear waving a little Australian flag.

Remus and Tonks had gotten her and Harry brand new watches. Rather than the usual watches that they already had, this one told the time by planets instead of numbers. Olivia was fascinated and Anne let her borrow it whilst she unwrapped the other presents.

Julian handed Anne a fairly squashy parcel.

She unwrapped and found a bright red rugby jersey with a white collar and a dragon embroidered on the collar.

“I thought I should get you a decent team’s shirt,” said Julian as Anne held it up, “England’s rubbish.”

Julian had bought Anne a Wales rugby jersey. Julian’s father had been Welsh, and Julian had always had a bit of a soft spot for the Welsh.

There were only a few presents left.

Irwin handed her a small well wrapped box with a pink ribbon around it.

“I know you’re going away,” he muttered, “and I don’t want you to forget me.”

“How could she forget you?” smirked Julian.

“You’re bloody engaged to each other!” agreed Harry.

“Leave them,” muttered Remus

She unwrapped the paper and found a small box. When she opened the box and found a silver heart shaped locket. It had tiny flowers engraved on it.

When she opened the locket and on one half there was a picture of Irwin and on the other half a picture of her. They had been cut out from a photo that had been taken at the Yule Ball back in fourth year.

“Thank you, Irwin,” she said giving him a long kiss.

“Hem, hem,” interrupted Sirius as he passed her a box.

“Sorry,” she muttered as she and Irwin broke apart.

Anne took the last box from Sirius and started to pull off the wrapping paper.

“Its going to be a bloody long year,” said Sirius “and we’re all going to need each other.”

She finished pulling off the paper and found two sets of mirrors like the one she already had upstairs waiting to be packed.

“Communication mirrors,” said Sirius, “you have no idea how hard those were to get hold of, there’s one set for Remus and the other for Irwin.”

Anne was staring at the mirrors in shock.

“There’s only so much you can write on a coin,” he chuckled as he gave Irwin and Remus their mirrors.

Anne was beyond words, she was dreading leaving home in a few days and not being able to talk to Remus or Irwin for months on end.

She pulled Sirius for a huge hug and didn’t let go for a very long time.

“It’s ok kiddo,” Sirius muttered patting her on the back.

“Where’s my mirrors?” asked Harry.

“If you ask nicely enough, I might let Ginny borrow mine every now and again,” said Irwin.

“Fair enough,” grumbled Harry.

They cleared away the wrapping paper and then the party began. Remus had to go back home to Tonks and Teddy, but Irwin stayed the whole day.

They started off with the biggest game of hide and seek they had ever had; it went on for hours. It only ended when Julian found Kevin hiding in an old armoire in the attic. 

Then they had a birthday breakfast, and everyone got dressed to play a huge game of football in the park outside.

Voldemort hadn’t come to power yet so they were making the most of the time whilst they still could, so they were still allowed outside for now at least.

Then they all had pizza and birthday cake in front of the tele whilst they watched videos. Harry and Anne picked a film each, but they had to be family friendly as Olivia was only five. Anne chose The Sound of Music and Harry chose one of their newest Disney tapes Hercules.

Only then at ten o’clock at night did Hermione and Anne finally get to finish the packing. The only things they hadn’t packed was their wands and their outfits for Bill and Fleurs wedding. They were going to be staying the night at the Weasleys after the wedding and then leaving first thing in the morning the next day.


	10. They Are Coming

Anne was stood in her room trying to pull on a light gold floaty dress. It was such a beautiful colour at Tonk’s wedding that Fleur had decided to have the same colour for her bridesmaids. The only jewellery she was wearing was her protective charm bracelet from the Lovegood’s.

Fortunately, this dress did not have quite as many layers of tulle and petticoat as the one she had had to wear for Tonks. Fleur had asked her Ginny and Gabrielle to be her bridesmaids. There was also a concealed pocket in the dress where Anne had hidden her wand in case she needed in the middle of the wedding.

Anne then sat on her bed as Rachael did her hair.

“There’s just so much of it,” muttered Rachael as she brushed out the mass of think waist-length hair.

Fleur had got Anne some long lengths of ribbon for her hair which matched the gold in the dress.

Rachael separated her hair like she usually would if Anne was wearing her hair in a half up. She braided the other half, into a tight spiral at the top of Anne’s hair. Rachael braided the gold ribbons into the hair that was going in the spiral.

“You look so pretty!” exclaimed Olivia.

“Can’t I come?” she begged.

“I’m afraid not no Livi,” Anne said as Rachael did her make up.

“But I don’t want you to go,” said Olivia as she started to burst into tears.

“It’s ok Livi I’m still going to be here,” said Rachael.

Olivia knew that Anne wasn’t going to be coming back from the wedding, and she didn’t want Anne to go.

“Livi,” said Anne carefully turning to the little girl sitting next to her on the bed.

“You’re going to be ok Rachael’s going to look after you.”

“But what if I never see you again?” she sobbed.

“Come here,” said Anne pulling her in for a hug.

“Mind the hair,” mouthed Rachael.

“Olivia, you know you mean a lot to me.”

“Then promise me you’ll come back!”

“I promise, that I am going to do my best to come back for you someday.”

“Anne,” said Hermione poking her head around the door, “we’ve got to go.”

“Look after her,” said Anne passing Olivia to Rachael.

“Good luck!” called Rachael as they went down the stairs.

Sirius and Harry were already standing in the hallway in dressrobes waiting for them.

“You got everything?” asked Harry.

Hermione nodded and clutched firmly onto her handbag.

They stepped out on to the front steps of the house and Sirius side apparated with Harry whilst Hermione went with Anne to the Burrow.

The wedding didn’t start for a few hours but a lot of the Order where arriving early to help set up security for all the guests.

Not everyone was coming, some people like Julian had to stay at home with the kids. If too many members of the Order came it would look suspicious, so the Scamander’s weren’t coming, and neither were the Longbottom’s. Remus and Tonks were coming but they had left Teddy at the Finch Fletchley’s. None of the Hogwarts’s staff were coming, it would be far too suspicious if they showed up. Kingsley was working at the Ministry tonight, but Moody was coming.

They apparated about half a mile away from the Burrow. The four of them walked up the path to the house where the Delacour’s and the Weasley’s were waiting for them along with Mad Eye who had showed up early.

“Anne!” exclaimed as they came towards the house.

“Tu est tres belle!” she said having kissed her on both cheeks.

“Tu aussi,” said Anne.

“Don’t be so silly,” chuckled Fleur, Fleur wasn’t ready yet and was wearing a pair of jeans and t-shirt because she hadn’t done her hair or make up yet.

“Bonjour Anne,” said Gabrielle waving at Anne.

“Bonjour Gabrielle,” beamed Anne, “comment ca va?”

“Bien merci, et tu?”

“Bien aussi, t’aimes l’Angleterre?”

Gabrielle seemed to think for a moment.

“Oui, mais il ya trop de pleu.”

“C’est vraiment,” chuckled Anne.

“What are you two jabbering away about?” asked Harry with a confused look on his face.

“Gabrielle was telling me she likes England, but there is too much rain.”

“Come on Anne,” said Fleur ushering Anne upstairs, “we have to get ready.”

“One moment,” said Moody interrupting them.

“I need to talk to those three,” he said looking firmly at Harry, Hermione and Anne.

“Somebodies in trouble,” sang Fred and George.

Anne followed Moody nervously to the sitting room where he wanted to talk to them.

“Right,” said Moody sitting down.

“Rumour has it you three are planning on going on a little outing?”

“What are you talking about?” asked Harry chuckling.

“Don’t play the innocent with my ladey,” said Moody shaking his head.

“We all know you three won’t be going back to school in a month, that would be ruddy suicide.”

“You can’t stop us,” said Hermione firmly.

“Who said I was trying to?” asked Moody.

“Dumbledore left us a mission,” Harry explained.

“Do you need any help?” 

“No,” said Harry, “we’re all sorted.”

“Good,” nodded Moody.

He reached behind the sofa and handed Harry a large parcel a bottle of sludge coloured liquid.

“Is this Polyjuice potion?” asked Harry.

“You’re going to bloody need it,” nodded Moody, “don’t worry I’ve got plenty more where that came from myself.”

“What’s this?” asked Hermione indicating the parcel.

“Think of it as a late birthday present,” he said indicating that Harry should open it.

“It’s a radio,” muttered Harry more confused than before.

“When Voldemort takes over, we’re going to be using radios to pass on messages” Moody explained.

“Not everything is short enough to be said on coins.”

Anne blushed slightly hiding behind some of her loose hair.

“Those coins are going to be very useful Anne,” said Moody, “I’m impressed, but we’ll be using the radios too.”

“Do you have ways of contacting anyway other than the coins?”

“The mirrors,” muttered Anne remembering the three mirrors in Hermione’s handbag.

“Good,” said Moody, “use them. Let us know you’re alive every now and again.”

“Is there anything else?” asked Harry.

“Don’t get yourselves killed,” said Moody, “we need you.”

Harry nodded before going to help set up in the garden.

Hermione and Anne headed upstairs where the other girls were getting ready.

“Should we do Ginny and Gabrielle’s hair the same?” asked Hermione.

“Oui,” nodded Fleur as she did her make up at the mirror.

Hermione did Ginny’s whilst Anne did Gabrielle’s

Gabrielle was jabbering away in French to Anne as she did her hair.

Before long they were all pulling on the dresses and Hermione was helping Fleur place the tiara in her hair.

“We ready?” asked Monsieur Delacour poking his head around the door.

“Oui Papa,” nodded Fleur getting up from the dressing table.

Hermione raced down the stairs so she could get her seat as she was not part of the bridal party.

Ginny, Gabrielle and Anne straightened out the skirts on the dresses and headed out to the marque. Gabrielle was handed a flower basket and went in front of her father and older sister.

Gabrielle scattered golden flowers down the aisle and Fleur and Monsieur Delacour walked up the aisle after her, followed by Ginny and Anne.

When they reached the front of the marque, Ginny and Gabrielle went to go sit down, Charlie was Bill’s best man and Anne was Fleurs maid of honour, so she had to stay standing to support Fleur.

The ceremony was beautiful. At the end Fleur and Bill joined hands and the officiant bound them together for life.

Within seconds waiters with goblets of champagne began to appear throughout the tent.

“Congratulations,” said Anne to Bill and Fleur who were still standing next to her.

“Thanks Anne,” said Bill as they both gave her a hug.

“You look beautiful sweetheart,” beamed Remus as he came over to her.

“Thanks,” Anne muttered pulling at a strand of her hair.

“Honest question Anne,” asked Tonks, “how bad do I look?”

Tonks was now five months pregnant and was starting to show, there was a clear baby bump showing under her dress robes.

“You look beautiful Dora!” beamed Anne giving her a hug.

“Well I’m afraid I’m not up for much dancing tonight,” said Tonks, “so I’m going to have to lend you Remus, he loves dancing at weddings.”

Remus chuckled slightly, he loved dancing, he always had done, but as Tonks was five months gone it probably wasn’t the best idea.

Remus settled Tonks at a table with a jug of pumpkin juice and hit the floor with Anne.

“Come on sweetheart,” he chuckled as they finished playing the opening waltz.

“You ready?” asked Remus.

Anne nodded beaming at him.

Remus had taught Anne how to dance properly and always loved weddings because it gave him a chance to show off his tricks on the dance floor. Usually he and Tonks did all the dips and tricks, but Tonks was pregnant.

Before long everyone kept on clamouring to have a turn at dancing with Remus, but Remus wasn’t having any of it. He didn’t get to see enough of his Anne at the moment anyway and was making the most of it.

After dancing for a few hours Remus and Anne went to go check on Tonks who had been watching them.

“You two enjoying yourselves?” she beamed as they came over.

“Hmm,” nodded Anne sitting down next to her.

She was boiling, Remus was a very enthusiastic dancer and she desperately needed a drink.

“I’ll go get you two some drinks,” chuckled Remus going over to find a fresh jug of water.

“Where does he get all the energy from?” asked Anne.

Remus had just finished twirling and lifting her around the dance floor for an hour straight.

“I have no idea,” said Tonks, “but he’s got good stamina, which is great in the bedroom.”

“Oh my God,” muttered Anne slamming her head into hands, “I did not need to hear that!”

“Not need to hear what?” asked Remus as he came back over with the iced water.

“Oh nothing,” smirked Tonks, “just girl talk.”

Remus shrugged and poured Tonks and Anne a tall glass of water each.

“I want you to drink all of that Dora,” said Remus firmly as he handed it to Tonks.

“Yes, alright Remus,” muttered Tonks as she sipped at the water.

“You ready to go again?” asked Remus as Anne finished her water.

“Sure,” chuckled Anne.

Remus started twirling her around the floor again. He was in the middle of lifting her in the air when Anne’s charm bracelet began to burn.

She suddenly clammed up in the middle of the lift.

“Annie?” asked Remus putting her back down noticing something was wrong.

“Sweetheart?” he asked nervously.

She pointed towards her wrist and Remus noticed that the warning charm was glowing bright red. They were in some very serious danger.

Remus started searching around the tent frantically for Harry. Harry had spent the whole evening with Ginny, they had spent most of it dancing, but some of the time they were kissing in dark corners of the marque trying to hide from Ginny’s Great Aunty Muriel.

He spotted Harry on the other side of the marque, his arm around Ginny’s waist and talking to Victor Krum.

Anne had gone into shut down and Remus started pulling her towards where Harry was standing with Ginny.

They didn’t make it that far however when a Lynx patronus landed in the middle of the dance floor right in front of them.

The patronus opened its mouth and Kingsley’s voice came bellowing out of it.

“The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming.”

The patronus disappeared just as suddenly as it had appeared, and the room was full of screaming people. There were cracks of people dissaparating left right and centre, but there was also people in black hoods apparating in.

Clearly the Weasley’s wards hadn’t been good enough, the deatheaters were here.

“Come on,” Remus yelled pulling her towards Harry as quickly as he could.

Anne was hyperventilating, there were too many people screaming.

A deatheater in a black hood grabbed hold of Anne’s other wrist and tried to pull her away from Remus.

“Get away from her!” yelled Fred casting a stinging jinx on the deatheaters hand, releasing Anne’s wrist.

“Harry,” said Remus giving him Anne’s wrist, “look after her.”

Harry nodded nervously.

“Go,” Remus prompted having given them both a quick hug.

Hermione took hold of Harry and Anne’s hands as another deatheater walked over towards them.

Anne was spinning and the next thing she knew she was somewhere she didn’t know and it was pitch black.


	11. Creoso i Gymru

“Where are we?” stammered Harry.

Anne was still hyperventilating, she had just been seconds away from being kidnapped by a deatheater, if Fred hadn’t been there, the deatheater might have been able to pull her away from Remus.

“Lampeter,” said Hermione as she riffled in her handbag, “I hope.”

She pulled a torch out of her handbag and turned it on.

She shined her torch on a sign which read, Creoso i Ceredigion and a second sign right next to it which read Creoso i Lampeter.

“What?” whispered Harry.

Hermione shined her torch slightly lower and read the same signs in English. Welcome to Ceredigion and Welcome to Lampeter.

“Thank god for that,” muttered Hermione.

“Harry, take your dress robe off, it will just look like your wearing a nice pair of trousers and a shirt with a tie.”

Harry nodded and took off his robe from other his shirt and trousers and passed it to Hermione.

“You ok sis?” asked Harry.

There was no answer but a lot of hyperventilating.

“It’s ok sis, you’re alright now, we’re safe,” Harry assured her.

“We need to find the war memorial,” said Hermione, “Charlie’s meeting us there.”

Hermione shone her torch around, and they eventually found the road to the town centre and before long they found themselves in front of a stone war memorial.

“Hermione, Anne’s really not doing to well,” Harry muttered.

“I know Harry,” Hermione said looking around frantically, “but we need to wait for Charlie.”

They stood waiting by the war memorial for at least ten minutes before Charlie showed up who was looking everywhere for Harry, Anne and Hermione hoping he was in the right place.

“Thank Merlin!” muttered Charlie as he came running over to them.

“I was about to give up,” said Charlie.

“Come on Annie,” said Harry putting an arm around her waist, “you need to get some sleep.”

“Hmm,” she muttered only half hearing him as Harry led her away.

“We should find somewhere to set up for the night,” said Hermione, “we’ll move on in the morning.”

They eventually found an empty field just outside the town to set up the tent and Hermione and Charlie placed the wards whilst Harry put up the tent.

“We should be safe here tonight,” said Charlie as they finished.

Harry led Anne into the tent and tucked her into one of the four beds.

“I’ll take first guard duty,” said Charlie once he had changed into jeans and a jumper.

“Coins,” Anne muttered.

“She’s right,” said Hermione, “we should check them.”

Hermione pulled the bag of coins out of the bag and saw that several of them were glowing.

“There’s one from someone called Legolas telling us to be careful, the ministries been taken over.”

Harry nodded; they already knew that.

“There’s another message from Romulus.”

“Remus,” Anne muttered.

“Right, well Remus sent us a message saying, ‘everyone safe, call you later.’

“The deatheaters are probably interrogating them or something,” muttered Harry.

“I’m gonna go tell Charlie everyone’s ok, I’ll be back in a minute.”

Anne nodded slightly as Harry left the tent.

Harry came back a moment later and sat down on Anne’s bed.

“Go get some sleep Hermione,” Harry said.

“You sure?” asked Hermione.

“Yeah, we’ve had a long day.”

“Ok,” said Hermione as she went to change into the pyjamas.

“You ok Sis?” 

Anne shook her head slightly.

“Everyone’s alright and Remus is going to call us, I promise.”

“There was a deatheater,” Anne stammered.

“What?” asked Harry shocked.

“He tried to grab my wrist and drag me away from Remus.”

Harry’s mouth dropped open slightly.

“If Fred didn’t use a stinging hex I might not even be here,” she sobbed finally bursting into tears.

“Come here sis,” said Harry opening his arms wide.

“It’s ok,” he whispered as she cried into him, “its ok.”

“I want Remus and Irwin,” she stammered.

“Remus is calling later, Irwin’s probably asleep.”

“You should get some sleep too Annie,” he said gently.

“Remus,” she muttered.

“He’s fine, he’s calling in a bit.”

“Try this,” said Hermione, passing Harry a bottle of calming draught.

“Come on sis,” Harry coaxed, “you’ll feel better.”

Anne grimaced slightly as she downed the potion. Hermione passed her a pair of pyjamas and Anne got changed.

Harry tucked Anne into bed and kept an eye on her as she got to sleep.

As the sun started to rise in the morning Hermione took over from Charlie on guard duty.

Finally, at seven o’clock in the morning Anne’s mirror started to ring.

“Guys!” Harry called “it’s the mirror!”

Hermione came running in from inside. Anne was still sleeping lightly, and Charlie was reading a book on the sofa

“Hello?” said Harry picking up the mirror.

“Harry!” breathed Remus in relief. 

“What happened?” asked Hermione.

“Everyone got out, they interrogated us for hours, Dora and I only just got home.”

“What did they want?” asked Harry fearing the worst.

“You.”

“Well,” sighed Remus, “more specifically you and Anne.”

“Thank God we got you two out when we did,” muttered Hermione.

“Is there anyone missing?” asked Harry.

“Charlie Weasley,” said Remus, “he disappeared in the middle of the chaos, nobody knows where he is.”

“It’s ok Remus,” said Charlie heading over to the mirror, “I’m here.”

Remus sighed deeply in relief.

“Thank Merlin,” he muttered, “you do realise Molly is going crazy?”

“Yeah I know,” said Charlie, “but if I’d told I was going with this lot she would have tried to stop me.”

“I’ll let her know that you’re alright,” nodded Remus.

“Where’s Annie?”

“She’s asleep,” said Harry, “I had to give her a calming draught.”

“But she’s alright?”

“Yes, Remus she’s fine,” nodded Charlie.

“I’ll tell the others you’re all alright, don’t forget to watch the coins, Moody’s going to try and set the radios up within a few days,” said Remus.

“Go get some sleep,” said Harry, “you look exhausted.”

“We all do,” said Charlie firmly.

“But firstly, we need to figure out where we’re going,” he said pulling out the map.

“Can we cut it down at all from you know the whole of Wales?” asked Harry.

“Well the biggest mountains seem to be in two national parks, Brecon Beacons and Snowdonia.”

“It could take us months to get through all of Snowdonia,” muttered Hermione.

“Yeah,” agreed Charlie, “and the dragon might not even be very far up in the mountains.”

“I think we should stay away from the Berwyn hills,” muttered Charlie, “that’s where the dragon reservation is, You Know Who keeping a dragon there would just be too obvious.”

“And if it’s not in Brecon Beacons or Snowdonia?” asked Harry.

“Then we’ll have cut out about half the places it could actually be,” shrugged Charlie.

“You two need some sleep, I’ll take guard duty,” said Hermione who had already got a bit of sleep.

Harry and Charlie both nodded.

“We leave for Brecon Beacons in five hours,” said Harry as he headed off to bed.


	12. First Day of Hiking

Anne woke up and looked around her in a daze.

“Where are we?” she stammered.

“In a field just outside Lampeter,” said Hermione, “we’re leaving for the Brecon Beacons in an hour.”

Anne nodded and started to get out of bed to get up.

“What’s the weather like?” she asked.

“Shorts and t-shirts its baking out there,” groaned Hermione.

Anne got up and had a quick strip wash with a flannel and the water Charlie had got earlier. She pulled on a pair of denim shorts and a lilac t-shirt before redoing her plaits.

They all had bowls of dry cornflakes for breakfast before packing up the tent and apparating to the Brecon Beacons. Anne didn’t have an apparition license unlike Hermione or Charlie but that was only because she had only come of age three days ago so hadn’t been able to do the test. She could actually apparate though.

“Well walking the Brecon Beacons is supposed to take a fortnight,” said Harry.

“We should go through everything carefully though, explore all the paths off the beaten track,” said Charlie.

“Should we call it about a month then?” asked Harry.

“Sound’s good to me,” said Harry as they started walking.

“How will we know when we’ve actually found it?” asked Anne.

“It will probably have a deatheater patrolling,” said Hermione, “it’s protecting a horcrux and somebody has to feed it.”

“Anything else?” asked Anne.

“They like the dark,” said Charlie “it might be hiding in a cave or underground.”

“So, anybody could find it?” asked Harry.

“Muggles could find it?” asked Hermione.

“It might have some extra protection, maybe runes or something to actually get into the cave or the den.”

“There are a lot of mines in Wales, could it be hiding there?” asked Hermione.

“The mines are too well regulated by the Muggles,” said Anne, “most of them are tourist sites.”

They spent the afternoon walking main path, occasionally going off the main path to check for caves where the dragon might be hiding. Although they walked ten miles, they only actually walked two miles of the actual Brecon Beacons as they kept on having to check for caves. This was going to take them four times longer than it should have done because they had to search so thoroughly.

As sunset approached, they found a campsite to set up camp. Harry set up the tent whilst Anne found water and Hermione put up the wards, and Charlie started a fire.

They had pasta with tomato sauce for dinner with tinned peaches for pudding. They were going to be living off their stockpile of canned, jarred and dry food for as long as this took. They had enough supplies to last them six months.

As Anne finished off her dinner, one of the many coins she kept in her pocket began to feel warm.

She pulled it out and found out she had another message.

“Don’t use You Know Who’s name, its taboo, pass it on, Legolas.”

Anne shook her head.

“I’ll give it to him, he’s very clever,” muttered Anne.

“What?” asked Hermione as she looked up from her peaches.

“Tom’s name has been made taboo, Legolas just told me.”

“Are you going to tell us who the fuck Legolas is?” asked Harry.

“He’s a friend,” smirked Anne.

“A pretty bloody important friend,” muttered Harry.

“What did you say that code name was?” asked Charlie.

“Legolas,” said Anne as she started collecting the dishes to wash.

“Sounds like one of the characters from the books that Perce used to read when we were kids,” chuckled Charlie.

And then Charlie stopped laughing his face in realisation.

“Important in the ministry and friends with you,” he muttered, “its Percy isn’t it?”

Anne blushed slightly before nodding.

“Yes, its Percy,” Anne admitted.

“Why didn’t you tell us who it was? He’s the reason all the muggleborns are in safety!” said Harry.

“He helped get my parents to Australia,” added Hermione.

“He didn’t want me to tell anyone,” said Anne.

“Then why did he agree to help you?” asked Charlie confused.

“Because it was the right thing to do,” said Anne, “also Penelope’s a muggleborn.”

“You’re hiding her too?” asked Harry.

“Percy and Penelope are looking after four muggleborns,” Anne explained.

“The point is,” said Anne firmly, “we need to let people know about the taboo, imagine how many people they can catch using it.”

“Oh right yeah,” nodded Harry.

They washed up the dishes and then all headed into the tent to call everyone on the mirrors, it was half past ten at night so they didn’t know who was going to pick up.

They tried Remus first but there was no answer, Sirius didn’t pick up either.

“Irwin!” Anne called clearly, “Irwin!”

“Annie?” said Irwin frantically.

“Annie you’re ok!” he exclaimed.

“Yeah we’re fine,” said Harry.

“Oh, thank Merlin,” muttered Irwin, “Sirius flu called this morning and told us about the deatheaters, I’ve been panicking for nearly twelve hours.”

“We’re fine Irwin,” assured Hermione.

“There’s something important we need to tell you and you need to pass it on,” said Harry.

“I’m all ears,” said Irwin.

“You Know Who’s name has been made taboo, you can’t use it,” said Hermione.

“The sneaky fucking bastard,” muttered Irwin.

“Very clever Tom, very clever.”

“Anne had the exact same reaction,” chuckled Charlie.

“You’ve got to admit only people who aren’t scared of him use his actual name,” said Irwin.

“Which is what makes it so clever,” said Anne.

“Anyway,” interrupted Harry, “can you pass it on?”

“You got it” said Irwin putting his two thumbs up.

“So where actually are you guys?” asked Irwin.

“We can’t say,” said Charlie.

“Give me any clues?”

“Gyrmu,” said Anne smiling smugly.

“Ah!” exclaimed Irwin.

“Wales bach!”

“Spot on,” chuckled Anne.

“Well, say hi to the country of her birth for my Mum.”

They talked for a while longer, but Anne eventually started to fall asleep.

“Irwin mate I’m sorry but we’ve got to go,” said Harry, “Anne’s starting to drop off on my shoulder.”

“Goodnight my beautiful goddess,” said Irwin waving and blowing her a kiss before putting the mirror down.

“Bed!” said Harry firmly.

Anne grumbled slightly but went off to go and find her pyjamas and get some sleep before they started covering more ground the next day.

Anne managed to get a few hours’ sleep but still woke up at before five o’clock in the morning.

She did some studying before the others woke up, she needed something to occupy her mind and found herself starting to read her NEWT textbooks.

She took another strip wash and they got walking again.


	13. Snatched

Within a few weeks they started to fall into a routine. 

Anne would wake up at just before five o’clock in the morning. Read her textbooks for a few hours. Take a strip wash with a flannel water and soap and get dressed. Have a dry bowl of cereal for breakfast. 

Start walking at just gone nine, walk for most of the day. They would only cover about two or three miles of the main path a day though because they were so busy searching so thoroughly for a dragon, they couldn’t miss it, it was too important. When they were walking Anne would have her headphones plugged into her Walkman so she could listen to her music as they walked.

Set up camp at about five or six in the evening. One would put up the tent, another would find water, another would start a fire and the last one would put up the wards. They would take it in turns to cook dinner usually something like baked beans or pasta with canned vegetables. Occasionally they could get some fish from a river but not often enough.

Then they would draw up a guard duty rota between Harry, Hermione and Charlie. Harry had promised Remus that Anne would sleep the best she possibly could, so she didn’t get put on guard duty.

Usually, in the evenings they would try and call someone on one of the mirrors and then maybe listen into the new radio program PotterWatch which was run by Fred and George.

Then Anne would go to bed at around ten, try and get a decent night’s sleep and start all over again the next morning.

On the evening of the Second of September, they had nearly finished covering the Brecon Beacons. They had been there for four weeks and Charlie thought that one more day should just about do it.

They had just finished a dinner of fried fish and pasta with tinned peas.

“Should we try and ring Irwin?” asked Anne.

“He should have just finished his first day back in class,” said Harry.

Anne went to go and find her mirror so she could call Irwin.

“Irwin!” Anne called, “Irwin!”

“Hey Annie!” beamed Irwin, Irwin was sat in the dorm with the curtains closed on the bed. None of the other boys were up yet as it was still fairly early

“How’s school?” asked Anne.

“A living hell,” groaned Irwin.

“You’ve only been back in class one day!” exclaimed Charlie.

“You haven’t met the Carrow’s,” muttered Irwin.

“We’ve heard plenty of rumours though,” said Harry.

“So how bad are they?” asked Anne.

“Well you guys know that Snapes been made headmaster?”

“Yeah?” said Harry and Hermione.

“Well he hasn’t really done anything yet, just staying in his office.”

“So whats wrong with that?” asked Charlie.

“It means the Carrows have free rein,” said Irwin raising his eyebrows.

“Alecto has made muggle studies a compulsory subject for everyone, she teaches us about how they are pigs and aren’t worth the dirt of the earth.”

“Expected about as much,” said Harry.

“Amycus teaches defence which is bad enough but he’s also in charge of all punishment.”

“Oh dear,” sighed Charlie.

“There are some nasty rumours that he’s trying to bring back blood quills,” Irwin grimaced.

Pain shot through Anne’s hand at even the thought of those blood quills.

“Are you ok though Irwin?” asked Harry.

“Yeah I’m fine, we’ve only been back a day,” Irwin shrugged.

“You lot ok?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Harry, “just getting through one day at a time.”

“Fair enough,” chuckled Irwin.

“I’m going to try get some sleep,” muttered Anne going to go get out some clean pyjamas.

“Night Annie!” called Irwin as she left.

Anne got into her pyjamas and tried to get some sleep, she started having nightmares about Umbridge and her blood quills.

She woke up in a cold sweat and found that Harry and Charlie were both fast asleep.

It was two o’clock in the morning, but she felt like she needed some fresh air.

She hopped out of bed and pulled on her Wales rugby top and a pair of jeans and trainers. She plugged her headphones into her Walkman and turned on some Beatles music.

She walked past Hermione on her way out of the tent and saw that Hermione had fallen asleep on guard duty.

She was going to take over from Hermione on guard duty but she felt like going for a walk on her own. She was with the others all the time and she never got any alone time. She made sure that her wand was in her pocket and she borrowed Hermione’s torch.

It was only four o’clock in the morning, but she just wanted to be alone for a bit, she knew where to find the others when she needed to get back.

She turned her music up and turned the torch on so that she could see where she was walking. 

She had been walking for an hour or so and hadn’t bumped into anyone along the path. She saw that it was five o’clock, she should start heading back before the others started to worry about her.

She changed the Walkman and put on some Roy Orbison. She was about to turn around when some people came around the corner in the opposite direction.

There was three of them and they were all wearing leather jackets. Some of them had very unkempt hair and they all looked very fed up.

“What’s the betting,” grumbled one of them, “that we make it all the way through yet another day without finding any off the list?”

“We’ll find some,” assured one of the others, “now that schools gone back.”

“And who are you?” asked one of the men leering at her.

“I’m sorry?” asked Anne pulling off her headphones.

“I said who are you ginger?” he said looking her up and down properly.

“Why does it have anything to do with you?” asked Anne in an offended tone.

“Because we’re wondering whether you’re a little witch or a muggle.”

“Whats a muggle?” asked Anne trying to act innocent.

“We should just obliviate her Redg, she’s clearly a muggle.”

“Or not,” said Redg who seemed to be the leader of the gang.

“She looks the right age for a student,” muttered Redg walking around her and sizing her up and out.

Anne just stood completely frozen as we leered at her.

“Yeah she does look young, fourteen maybe fifteen,” nodded one of the others.

“And if you were a muggle,” smirked Redg, “then why would you have this?”

Redg pulled out her wand which had been sticking out of jeans back pocket.

“So, you’re a little witch, then aren’t you?” chuckled Redg.

“Whats your name girl?” asked one of Redg’s friends.

Anne had to think quickly, these must be snatchers she had heard about on PotterWatch. She would have to give them a name that would be on the list but not her own.

“Brenda Potger,” Anne stammered nervously.

“Blood status?”

“Muggleborn.”

“Oh so you’re a mudblood?” asked Redg.

“Well that’s ten galleons for a start,” said one of the others beaming.

“She on the list?” asked Redg.

“You bet,” said the last snatcher.

“Well then we know what to do,” chuckled Redg.

Redg aimed a fist at Anne’s face and the next thing she knew she’d been knocked out cold.

Anne looked around nervously, she was in a tent but not her tent. She had been tied up but she could see all her possessions including her wand lying only a few metres away.

There were several frantic voices coming from outside the tent.

“I say we take her in,” said one of the voices.

“I say we wait until we’ve got more of em,” said another, “it’s only seven o’clock in the morning, we could find more.”

“Yeah we could take em in together at the end of the day!”

Anne shook her head at how stupid they were.

She untied the ropes around her wrists and ankles wandlessly and grabbed all her things off of the table next to her, including her, torch, headphones and Walkman. 

How stupid were they, they’d even left her wand behind!

She grabbed her wand and stood behind the three snatchers and cast Stupefy nonverbally. She then obliviated their memorys, when they woke up they would never remember any of this.

Then she legged it and sprinted away from the tent as fast as she possibly could. The landscape was familiar she was still in the Brecon Beacons.

She must have kept running for at least ten minutes straight.

Suddenly she heard voices calling for her in the distance.

“Anne!” Harry was yelling at the top of his lungs.

Anne ran as quickly as she could to Harry.

“Annie!” said Harry pulling her in close.

Anne was completely out of breath after having run at least two miles.

“We were so worried,” he sobbed, “let’s get you back.”

Harry put his arm around her waist and led her back to the tent.

“Oh, thank Merlin,” muttered Charlie collapsing onto the sofa in relief.

Harry passed Anne a large glass of water and a calming draught.

“What happened Sis?” asked Harry.

“We all woke up and you’d disappeared, you can’t just do that,” said Hermione who had been close to tears. It was Hermione after all that had fallen asleep on guard duty.

“I woke up and I wanted to get some fresh air, so I got dressed,” said Anne trying to keep calm.

“I grabbed her headphones, Walkman, and wand and headed outside of the tent. When I got outside, I wanted to be alone, so I decided to go for walk.”

“For God’s sake,” muttered Harry putting his head in his hands, “you can’t just wander off on your own.”

“I needed to be alone” she sobbed, “there’s always someone else there I just wanted to go for a walk.”

“This isn’t the end of the story though is it?” asked Harry nervously.

“If it was the end of the story you wouldn’t have come running back breathlessly.”

Anne shook her head and there was now tears streaming down her face.

“I,” she stammered, “I ran into some Snatchers.”

“What?” asked Charlie getting up from the sofa in shock.

“We need to move!” said Charlie as he started getting up to put away the tent and take down the wards.

“I stupefied them and obliviated them,” said Anne, “they’re really thick.”

“Are you sure?” asked Charlie looking at her straight in the eye.

Anne gave him a very firm nod.

“What happened next Sis?” asked Harry.

“They asked me if I was a witch or a muggle, they were about to obliviate me thinking I was a muggle, when they found a wand poking out of my pocket.”

Hermione looked at her nervously.

They asked me for my name and blood status. I told them I was Brenda Potger, and a muggleborn, fortunately they believed me.”

“Then?” asked Harry wondering how much bloody worse this story could get.

“The leader punched me and knocked me out cold. When I came to I was tied up in their tent, they had left my wand, torch, headphones and Walkman on the chair next to me.”

“You’re right Anne,” nodded Hermione, “they really are quite stupid.”

“They were arguing outside the tent about what to do with me. As they were arguing I undid the ropes wandlessly and grabbed my things before leaving the tent and stupefying and obliviating the three snatchers.”

“Then?” asked Harry one more time.

“Then I fled from the tent and started running back, eventually I found you,” she finished.

“Come here sis,” said Harry holding his arms open for her.

Harry pulled Anne into a huge hug.

“This is all very touching,” said Charlie “but we need to get moving.”

Charlie, Hermione and Harry packed everything up and then they apparated to the bottom of Mount Snowdon.

“I think we need a day off,” said Harry.

Charlie nodded in agreement and they set up camp and put up the wards.

“Annie,” said Harry as he put his sister to bed.

“Don’t you ever do this to me ever again,” he said shaking his head slightly.

Anne lay back on her pillows tiredly.

“Promise?” asked Harry.

“Promise,” she said half asleep.

“If you don’t tell Remus I won’t,” said Harry as he tucked her in under the covers as she fell asleep.

“He’ll never know,” said Hermione.

“I mean why should he need to?” asked Charlie, “she was only gone a few hours.”


	14. PotterWatch

They took a day off as Anne clearly needed to recover from the excitement of that day.

She slept for a few hours and then woke up in the early afternoon.

“You ok Sis?” asked Harry who had been sat on the sofa with Charlie looking at a map of Snowdonia.

“Hmm,” she muttered.

“Don’t scare us like that again alright?” asked Charlie.

“Yeah,” muttered Anne as she summoned some textbooks from her bedside table.

Just because they were on the run from Tom didn’t mean that she was going to fall behind on her studys.

She moved over to the sofa and leaned against Harry’s legs as she went through her potions textbook.

“Annie you know those books back to front and you know you do,” said Harry shaking his head.

“Well the most obvious thing to start off with is Mount Snowdon,” said Charlie looking at the map.

“There’s a lot of other big mountains on this thing,” muttered Hermione leaning down next to the map.

“And all the names are equally unpronounceable,” sighed Harry, “I mean come on who can pronounce these things, Carnedd Llewelyn, Elidir Fawr, Aran Fawddwy, Moel Siabod.”

“Yes well at least it’s not as long as that one,” chuckled Charlie pointing at a small town in North Wales called Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.

“So, we start off with the mountains,” nodded Charlie, “I just wish we had some way of cutting this down, Snowdonia is 823 square miles!”

“And that’s if the cups even in Snowdonia,” nodded Harry.

Anne took a quick glance over to Hermione’s bag where her Divination supplies were kept.

“No,” said Hermione firmly, “We are already relying enough on Divination as it is and I have always found it a very woolly subject.”

Anne sighed and went back to her potions book.

“Ok, said Harry trying to diffuse the tension, “this guidebook says these are the ten biggest mountains in Snowdonia.”

“I’d give them a day each to climb,” said Charlie, “and another two days each to explore them thoroughly?”

“So, thirty days?” clarified Harry, “well that will take us another month.”

“I still wish we had more of an idea,” muttered Charlie shaking his head.

“Look,” sighed Hermione reluctantly, “if we cover all ten of those and we haven’t found anything, we’ll pull out the crystal ball or something else ridiculous.”

Anne nodded in agreement.

“I used some Polyjuice potion earlier and went to muggle supermarket,” said Hermione.

Anne and Charlie went through the shopping and found that Hermione had picked up a loaf of bread, two cartons of eggs, two packs of sausages, a few dozen apples, a bottle of blackcurrant and apple fruit squash, a large box of tea bags and bottle of milk, she had even managed to get half a dozen large bars of chocolate because their emergency chocolate supplies were running low.

“Tea!” exclaimed Harry who hadn’t had a cup of tea in over a month.

Charlie built a fire and put the kettle on, it was his turn to do the cooking tonight. For once their pasta with tomato sauce had some protein with it that hadn’t come out of a can because they had some sausages, they saved the other pack for tomorrow.

Anne was listening to her Walkman drinking a mug of hot blackcurrant and apple squash whilst Hermione took her turn at the washing up.

“Hey,” said Harry, getting the radio out, “Potterwatch is on tonight!”

“What did Sirius say the password was tonight?” asked Charlie.

“Ariana,” said Harry tapping the radio rhythmically.

The radio whirred into life and Anne took off her headphones as the four of them gathered around the radio.

“Good evening my fellow listeners, welcome to PotterWatch!”

“Hi Lee!” Harry waved as Anne kneeled down next to the radio and the others sat down on the sofa.

“Today I am joined by some of our regular contributors, Royal, Romulus and Raving.”

They knew that these meant Remus, Kingsley and Moody.

“Evening River,” chuckled Remus.

“Evening,” growled Moody.

“So, as all know school reopened a few days ago,” said Lee, “some of our sources from inside the school have been reporting back to us on the ‘new Hogwarts.’”

“The Chief Deatheater or Tom as we call him,” said Kingsley, “seems to be staying out of the running of the school rather deciding to leave his deatheaters the Carrow siblings in charge.”

“It has now been confirmed,” said Moody, “that blood quills are being used as a form of punishment.”

“We urge you,” begged Remus, “if there are any students listening to try not to upset the Carrows, we have enough innocent blood being spilt as it is without adding torture onto the list.”

“We appreciate,” said Lee, “that it must be difficult for you at school, some of your friends are missing and the school is changing, just try not to get into too much trouble.”

“In further news,” said Kingsley, “there are even more Snatchers up and down the country, trying to find muggle borns and enemies of the new regime on the run.”

“Although not all of these people are particularly bright,” said Moody, “that does not mean that we should assume this of all of them.”

“Constant Vigilance!” shouted Moody down the radio.

“Keep yourselves protected, learn decent warding.”

“And most importantly,” said Kingsley, “never use You Know Who’s name, they’ll find you within moments.” 

“In other news,” said Remus, “there have been a few sightings of Tom or the Chief Deatheater abroad.”

“I honestly cant blame him,” chuckled Lee, “if I had just taken over the wizarding world I might enjoy a nice little holiday myself.”

“Yes well,” grumbled Moody, “that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t all keep your guards up.”

“Constant Vigilance!!” yelled Moody and Lee simultaneously.

“Yes River,” said Kingsley, “Constant Vigilance, Tom has his spies everywhere, you can never be too careful.”

“We regret to inform you however,” said Kingsley, “that today the deaths of Ted Tonks and Dirk Creswell were both reported.”

Anne stared at the radio in shock, she couldn’t believe that Ted was dead. Harry gripped firmly onto her shoulder as tears began to run down her cheeks.

“Our thoughts are with all their friends and families, they didn’t die in vain,” said Moody.

“We are pleased to inform you though that none of the muggle borns from school age have been found by the Snatchers, your friends are safe,” said Lee.

“As for Harry and Anne Potter,” said Kingsley, “there have been no sightings, this is a good thing.”

“If Tom did know where they were, he would be publicising their deaths,” said Moody.

“Harry, Anne,” said Lee, “if either of you are listening, we hope you’re both ok.”

“We’re all behind you,” said Kingsley.

“And so, for now goodnight,” said Lee, “keep safe out there, and most importantly.”

“Constant Vigilance!” called Lee, Moody and Kingsley.

The radio whirred into silence.

“Ted,” Anne whispered.

“Come here Sis,” Harry said kneeling down on the floor next to her and opening his arms wide.

Anne fell into her brothers’ eyes and burst into tears.

Ted, who had laughed at Dora’s wedding, Ted who shared the same eyes and smile as his grandson Teddy. Ted was dead.

“We should call Remus,” said Hermione gently after a while.

“We need to check in on Remus and Tonks,” said Charlie.

“Annie,” said Harry stroking her hair, “do you want to call Remus?”

She nodded uncertainly and Charlie went to go get out the right mirror.

“Remus!” Harry called having placed the mirror on the table.

“Remus!”

“Anne?” asked Remus appearing on the mirror.

Remus’s face was tear-streaked; he had clearly had a long day.

“We heard about Ted,” explained Hermione, “on the radio.”

“How’s Tonks?” asked Harry.

“She’s upset obviously,” Remus sighed, “she’s with her mother, Andromeda’s moving in here so they can be together.”

“Are you ok Remus?” asked Anne turning towards the mirror.

“Yes I’m fine sweetheart, Ted and Dirk aren’t the first we’ve lost in this war and I’m sorry to say they won’t be the last.”

“The sooner we get this job done the better,” said Charlie.

“The sooner we find it the sooner we are one step closer to killing Tom,” nodded Harry.

“Are you four ok though?” asked Remus.

“Yeah we’re fine,” nodded Harry.

“Just getting through one day at a time,” agreed Charlie.

“I should get back to Teddy and Dora,” he said sighing slightly.

“Night Remus!” Anne called still crying slightly.

“Look after each other.”

“When don’t we,” said Harry.

“Night,” said Remus before disappearing from mirror.

“I’m going to get some sleep,” said Anne getting off the floor and going to bed, she was already wearing her pyjamas.

She tried reading some more of her potions book by wand light under her bedcovers but she just couldn’t manage to read anything.

She eventually gave up the book as a bad job and curled up with her knees pulled into her chest sobbing.

Eventually Anne fell asleep and Harry tucked her in properly before taking over on guard duty.


	15. In Which Hermione Gives In

By the time that they had finished the ten highest mountains in Wales they had been camping for well over two months and it had hit October. The nights were starting to get colder. 

Harry had told Remus he would keep an eye on Anne as she didn’t know how long they were going to gone for. He tried to make sure Anne was eating properly but she didn’t always finish off her meals, as for sleeping Anne usually got at least two or three hours of sleep a night but between the nightmares and missing her friends and family she could never sleep much.

She only slept as much as she did because she was so tired from walking so far, each day. 

Only when they had been camping for over two months did Hermione finally give in and let Anne get out her crystal ball.

Anne was sat in the tent on rainy evening in late October.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” grumbled Hermione.

Charlie dimmed the lights whilst Anne set up the crystal ball.

Before long the ball filled with fog and Anne cleared her mind before staring into it whilst the others watched.

“Do you see anything Annie?” asked Harry.

“Give me time,” muttered Anne as she stared into the fog.

“There’s a dragon,” nodded Anne.

“What kind?” asked Charlie, “what colour?”

“A green one.”

“Good,” nodded Charlie, “a Common Welsh Green not as dangerous as other dragons.”

“Any ideas on location.”

“I see a large expanse of water,” she muttered still looking into the ball, “possibly a lake.”

“Snow and an arrow pointing down.”

“Snowdonia!” whispered Hermione getting interested.

“Anything else?” asked Harry as he wrote everything down.

“I see some strange markings,” said Anne, “they might be runes.”

Anne had never taken Ancient Runes, but she knew that Hermione had done so they’d be alright if they needed them.

“Is that all we’ve got Annie?” 

“I think so,” said Anne as the shapes disappeared from the fog.

“Well that was helpful,” said Harry enthusiastically as Anne put away the crystal ball and Charlie turned the lights back on.

“At least we know what kind of dragon we’ve got now,” nodded Charlie.

“The only bad thing is,” sighed Anne, “according to this guidebook, there are two hundred and fifty lakes in Snowdonia.”

“Well,” said Charlie flicking through the guidebook, “if we cover a few lakes a day and explore for signs of dragons, it should only take us a few months to find it,” beamed Charlie.

As Harry Charlie and Hermione were starting to plan which lakes they wanted to visit first, Anne practised her wandless magic using the water from the washing up after dinner.

There was a slightly dirty water dragon flying around the room blowing soap bubbles instead of fire.

“That is adorable,” chuckled Harry.

“I wish the real dragon was going to be that cute,” said Charlie.

“If we start off with Llyn Tegid,” said Hermione, “that’s the largest, we could easily spend a week trawling around there for the cup.”

Charlie and Harry nodded in agreement as one of the mirrors on the coffee table began to ring.

“Hello?” asked Anne picking up the mirror.

“Hey Annie!” beamed Irwin.

“Irwin!” Anne squealed, “I have missed you so much!!”

“I’ve missed you too Annie,” he chuckled, “you lot still in Wales?”

“I’m afraid that information is classified,” smirked Hermione.

“So how goes the resistance movement?” chuckled Harry.

“Great!” said Irwin, “we’ve been really busy, teaching them all how to defend themselves and stuff.”

“How are the others?” asked Hermione.

“They’re right here, that’s why we rang you,” said Irwin as he showed the mirror around.

Ginny, Ron, Neville and Luna were all in the room with him.

“Where are you guys?” asked Harry as he looked around the room they were in. That wasn’t any of the classrooms or Common Rooms. It clearly had at least a few beds and three house banners.

“Our secret hideout,” said Ron touching his nose.

“Room of Requirement,” nodded Ginny.

“It’s the same DA classroom from back in fifth year but theres a secret panel which let us in here,” explained Neville.

“But what are you guys doing there?” asked Charlie urgently.

“We’re hiding like you lot,” said Ron.

“Hiding?” asked Anne nervously.

“The Carrows,” groaned Neville.

“They aren’t very nice people,” said Luna shaking her head.

Anne noticed that Irwin, Neville and Luna had black eyes, Ginny had some strange scratches down one side of her face and Ron had what looked like a bad burn mark on his right cheek. Not to mention that they all had marks on their hands which meant they had all been forced to use blood quills.

“Are you guys alright?” asked Harry frantically.

“We’re fine,” said Irwin, “we just got caught trying to release some first years from shackles.”

“We’re ok guys, the Carrows can’t get in,” said Neville, “the room keeps moving.”

“We only leave here for class,” said Irwin.

“And in the meantime,” beamed Ron, “we’ve been doing some planning.”

“Planning?” asked Hermione.

“Battle planning,” nodded Neville.

“We think the best place to try and fight him would be at Hogwarts,” said Ginny.

“We’ve been talking to Moody and Kingsley and they agree with us,” nodded Ron.

“Hogwarts?” shouted Harry.

Ginny gave them a firm nod.

“Its got great protection and if we’ve got time to set up properly Tom won’t stand a chance,” said Irwin.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Harry shaking his head, “what about the students?”

“And the Carrows, and what about Snape?”

“We haven’t figured out about the Carrows yet and we don’t know about Snape,” admitted Neville.

“But we’re working on it,” said Ron.

“As for the students, there’s always the Chamber of Secrets,” said Luna.

Harry looked confused before his face lit up.

“You’ve got a point there Luna!” he exclaimed.

“Well it sounds like you lot have been busy,” said Harry, “keep up the good work.”

“Hurry up with whatever you’re doing Harry,” said Ron, “we want to kill some deatheaters!”

“Don’t worry,” said Harry shaking his head chuckling, “we will do.”

The four of them apparated to Llyn Tegid the next morning and they started looking through the different lake in Snowdonia slowly ticking them off the list.

As October slowly moved into November, they had to start wrapping up even more, Anne was now having to wear a jumper, a coat, scarf, hat and gloves every single day.

Even though they spent every day worried they were going to run into Snatchers or deatheaters, Anne noticed that Wales was a beautiful country. She would love to come back here someday when all this nightmare about Tom was over and appreciate it properly rather than searching frantically for a Horcrux or a dragon.

By late November they had covered over half of the lakes and were trying to decide which one to visit next. 

Whilst they had been camping in Wales everyone had been very busy, the DA where busy battle planning with help from the order and learning how to defend themselves. Remus and Sirius had been teaching the muggleborns how to duel properly so that the ones of sixteen and above could help with the fighting if they wanted to. 

Anne was staring into the fire with an overly large jumper pulled over her knees as she pulled her knees into her chest. She was watching the flames crackle, she just couldn’t wait till they found the cup, then they could get to Hogwarts and start fighting and kill Tom.

“So where we going next?” asked Anne looking over at her brother.

“Llyn Dinas,” said Harry pointing on a map.


	16. Dinas Emrys

Anne woke up and pulled on a homemade Ravenclaw jumper which had blue and bronze stripes before pulling on a pair of jeans and her hiking boots. She did her hair in one long plait straight down her back and read a book on advances transfiguration whilst she waited for the others to wake up.

“You ok Annie?” asked Harry as he ate a bowl of dry cereal.

“Yeah I’m just not hungry,” she muttered as she kept reading her book.

“Harry,” she called.

“Yeah?” he asked as he pulled on a second jumper.

“I’ve got a feeling about today.”

“Good or bad?” asked Harry nervously.

“I don’t know,” she muttered shaking her head.

“Come on Sis,” said Harry, “we need to get going.”

Anne pulled on her coat, hat scarf and gloves and then helped Hermione take down the wards as Charlie and Harry packed away.

They all took hands and apparated to Llyn Dinas.

Anne knew within seconds that they were getting close now, this was the lake she had seen in the crystal ball.

“It’s close,” she told Charlie.

“You sure?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Harry, “I can feel it.”

They walked around the lake for a few hours but couldn’t find anything.

“What’s that?” asked Anne pointing at a large hill near the lake.

“I don’t know,” muttered Charlie, “but there’s only one way to find out.”

They climbed the hill and found themselves by a hillfort.

“Surely Tom wouldn’t have hidden it where the muggles could find it?” asked Harry incredulously.

Anne was a bit distracted though she had been reading a sign.

Welcome to Dinas Emrys.

There was a large section about the history of the hillfort and the archaeological discoveries. But that wasn’t what interested Anne the sign had a picture of two dragons.

There was also a section about the mythology of the hillfort. Apparently, the fort had something to do with Merlin and two battling dragons. One of the versions of the story was about two battling dragons that had been terrorizing the countryside, so someone tricked the two dragons into drinking a cauldron of mead which transformed the dragons into pigs. The legend was that the dragons had been buried under the fort.

Anne pointed at the section about the legend.

“What a load of rubbish,” said Hermione with her arms folded, “dragons turning into pigs!”

“Well for a start Hermione,” Anne whispered, “we know that Merlin wasn’t a myth.”

“And secondly,” said Charlie, “this is the biggest lead we’ve had in months.”

They walked to the top of the hillfort, fortunately it was late November so not exactly peak season time, so there weren’t too many muggles hanging around.

They started looking for clues about where to possibly find the dragon. 

As the sun started to set at half past five they were about to give up when Anne cleared some ivy off of one of the stones. The stone had some very strange markings

“Hermione!” she called frantically.

“Yeah?” said Hermione who had been looking for her torch.

Anne pointed to the strange markings.

“Runes!” exclaimed Hermione leaning down and trying to translate them.

Harry and Charlie tried to check that no muggles were watching as Hermione tried to figure out the runes. All of the muggles had already gone home as it was starting to get dark.

Hermione made some strange mutterings in a foreign language and then waved her wands in some intricate movements. 

The stone moved aside and revealed a staircase that would lead them down into the hill itself.

“Wands out,” said Harry before they started down the stairs.

The four of them pulled out and lit their wands before heading down the stone stairs leading into the hill.

Harry went first, then Hermione, then Anne and then Charlie brought up the rear. The stone slid closed as Charlie started to descend the staircase. They must have walked down at least two hundred steps before Harry reached the bottom of the staircase. 

They had reached the beginning of a dark winding stone passageway, which they started to walk down. The stones on the wall had pictures engraved on them. Some of them showed a pair of dragons fighting in sky or men riding on the back of dragons. Other pictures showed wizards fighting each other with staffs rather than wands.

As they reached the end of the passageway where there was a set of torches lit, they could see a stone boulder with strange engravings again.

“Whats it say Hermione?” asked Harry.

“It says it wants a blood payment,” she grimaced.

They could hear echoed footsteps along the passageway coming from the opposite direction.

“Shhh!” muttered Hermione before they all turned off their wands which were lit up. Harry, Anne and Hermione hid under Harry’s cloak and Charlie cast a disillusionment charm on himself.

A very disgruntled looking man levitating two dead sheep came into view. He looked vaguely familiar to Anne from his wanted posters, that was one of the two Lestrange brothers.

He was muttering darkly as he approached the boulder.

“So the dark lord wants a bloody dragon?” he grumbled.

“Fine with me I don’t blame him, but it’s not him who has to look after it.”

“Its an honour Rabs,” he shrieked in a voice that was a scarily good impression of Bellatrix Lestrange.

“Yeah well Bella,” he muttered as he let the sheep down and pulled out a silver dagger, “you’re not the one who has to look after his pet.”

Rabastan Lestrange pricked his finger with the silver dagger and allowed a few drops of the blood run into the cracks in the boulder where the marks were engraved.

The boulder started to move aside instantly.

“Not so fast!” said Harry coming out from under the cloak with his wand drawn.

“If it isn’t Harry fucking Potter,” smirked Rabastan, “the Chosen One, the Boy Who Lived. How’s that working out for you?”

Rabastan poked his wand into Harry’s chest.

“The Dark Lord is going to be very happy, when I bring you to him, but you won’t be alive to see that, it’s just you and me Potter.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” said Harry shaking his head as they both jabbed their wands into each other’s chests.

Charlie had walked up behind him and had just lifted his disillusionment charm and was pointing his wand at Rabastan’s throat.

Hermione and Anne were also pointing their wands firmly at Rabastan.

“I see you’ve got your freak sister with you,” chuckled Rabastan, “I’m surprised she hasn’t found herself in the same ward as the Longbottom’s yet.”

That did it, not only did Rabastan help put Alice and Frank into thatstate but he almost seemed to find it funny!

“Move aside Harry,” she muttered.

Harry and Charlie backed away from Rabastan seeing the look of fury on Anne’s face.

Anne and Rabastan were only stood a few metres apart but the others backed away to give them space.

“Expeliarmus!” called Rabastan.

Anne’s wand tugged itself out of her hand and started to fly towards Rabastan. She gestured towards her wand using her hand and her wand flew straight back to her.

Rabastan seemed to be slightly confused as to what had just happened but shook himself out of it.

“Avada kedavara!”

Anne blocked the spell easily.

“Stupefy!” she called.

But Rabastan blocked that spell too.

Anne looked around quickly, it was time to try and put her elemental magic as Sirius called it to work.

There was several loose medium sized rocks on the floor on the passageway.

Anne lifted her hands and levitated the rocks, which she then sent flying straight at Rabastan’s chest. 

Rabastan keeled over as the rocks hit him in the stomach.

“Incarcerous,” said Anne pointing her wand at the deatheater.

Ropes came flying out of her wand and tied up Rabastan within seconds.

“Pertrificus Totalus,” she finished.

“Well that’s the security dealt with,” said Harry.

“Now for the dragon,” nodded Charlie.

The boulder was still moved across from when Rabastan had moved it earlier.

“I’ll guard him,” said Hermione indicating Rabastan and giving him a small kick.

“We’ll be needing these,” said Charlie levitating the two sheep corpses, “the dragon will be hungry.”

As they walked into the other passage past the boulder the passageway was lit by torches on both sides. 

Harry Anne and Charlie all kept their wands out as they walked along. As they got further along the rumbling of the roars grew steadily louder.

A burst of flames shot through from around the corner in the passageway.

“I’ll go first,” muttered Charlie.

They walked around the corner with their wands drawn, all three of them had shield charms up as Charlie had told them to so they could protect themselves from the dragon’s flame.

“Woah there,” said Charlie carefully.

“Here,” he said levitating over the two sheep corpses.

The dragon sniffed at them cautiously before licking at one and then ripping its teeth into one of the sheep.

The dragon was attached to several long chains to its legs and arms.

The bright green dragon was lying on top of a huge pile of treasure, goblets and coins, necklaces, rubies and sapphires, emeralds and diamonds.

Anne saw a bright gold cup with a badger engraved on it.

Charlie was trying to keep the dragon calm and was stroking it’s nuzzle as the dragon ate. Charlie really did know his thing with dragons.

Anne edged her way towards the cup and picked it up and pulled on a basilisk fang out of coat pocket that she had kept in there in case they had found the Horcrux.

“Do it Annie!” called Harry.

Anne kneeled down and lifted the basilisk high above her head. She pierced the cup with the fang and a piece of Voldemort’s soul came flying out of cup and tried to attack her. She plunged the fang further into the cup and the Horcrux was gone.

“Well done Annie!” said Harry picking her up for a huge hug.

Anne merely shrugged and tgave him the cup with the hole in it.

“What are you doing Charlie?” asked Harry as he put Anne back down.

Charlie had been fiddling with the dragon’s chains.

“Freeing a dragon,” said Charlie as if there was nothing more normal in the world.

Charlie jumped onto the back of the dragon and pulled Harry and Anne up after him.

“Come on girl,” said Charlie gently as he directed the dragon to the exit of the hill

They found Hermione and Charlie pulled Hermione onto the back of the dragon too.

“What should we do with him?” asked Harry, looking at Rabastan who was still tied up.

But the dragon answered that question for him. Dragons didn’t usually attack humans, but the dragon clearly had a grudge against one of the wizards that had been keeping her prisoner for years.

The dragon opened its mouth and let out a huge gush of flame setting Rabastan on fire and burning him to a crisp.

“Good girl,” said Charlie giving the dragon a stroke.

The dragon gave some sort of weird purr as Charlie stroked it and the dragon flew them up to the exit. The stone barrier at the top of the hill opened automatically as they approached and then finally landed so they could get off.

“Well done girl!” said Charlie as they got off the dragon. Charlie gave the dragon yet another pat.

“Go,” said Charlie softly stroking it on the nose, “you’re free.”

The dragon nodded its head slightly and started to flap its wings as it flew away into the sunrise.


	17. Order Assemble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not quite the Avengers but pretty close

“So,” muttered Charlie as they watched the dragon fly away, “what do we do next?”

“We move onto stage two,” sighed Harry.

They all clutched onto each other and apparated to just outside Hogsmeade.

Anne felt a slight chill as they arrived, and it wasn’t just that it was the first of December in the Scottish Highlands, she associated this feeling with dementors.

They quickly took some Polyjuice potion and turned into four random Welsh muggles and trekked down to the village. According to Neville, Aberforth had an entrance into the school.

Harry looked around shiftily as they approached the pub and knocked on the door.

“For Merlins sake!” grumbled Aberforth as he opened the door, “the pub doesn’t open until eleven, its only nine.”

The four of them slipped inside the pub before Aberforth shut the door.

“What the?” stuttered Abeforth.

At the moment however the Polyjuice potion began to fade and Harry, Anne, Hermione and Charlie were standing in his pub.

“You’ve done it?” he grumbled, “whatever it is you were meant to be doing.”

“Yes sir,” nodded Harry.

“I’ll just be a moment,” said Aberforth shaking his head slightly.

He came back a minute later with four plates of eggs and bacon.

They tucked in ravenously, they had been so busy fighting a dragon they hadn’t eaten in twenty-four hours.

As Aberforth brought over a pot of coffee Anne started riffling in Hermione’s handbag and pulled out a small bottle.

“If we’re ever going to be needing this,” she said holding up her vial of Felix Felicis she’d had for well over a year, “it’s today.”

Harry nodded and added the vial of potion to the coffee leaving a few drops left in the bottle which Anne drank because she didn’t like coffee.

Anne had been watching a painting, there had been a young girl in it, but she had walked out of the frame. The girl was starting to walk back to the front of the picture, but she wasn’t alone this time.

The portrait swung forward and there stood a very battered and very tired looking Neville.

“Hi guys!” he beamed.

“Nev!” Harry exclaimed jumping up from the table to give him a hug.

“Coffee Neville?” asked Hermione passing him a cup

“So, is it now then?” he asked as he took a quick gulp of coffee.

Harry nodded firmly.

“Well then what are you all sitting around for,” said Abeforth exasperated, “get going.”

“By the way they,” said Neville as they started to climb into the passage, “there might be.”

“A few more people I know,” said Aberforth, “try a whole army’s worth.”

Charlie quickly gulped down the last of his coffee before following htem through the passage.

“Everyone’s so excited to see you,” said Neville, “we’ve planning for over a month but most of them don’t even know if youre still alive or not you know.”

“Yeah I know,” muttered Harry as they started the steep climb up to the school.

Neville spent most of the walk telling them about the Carrows. After a while passage became less steep and they reached another door.

“Wait here,” Neville whispered beaming.

“Hey guys!” Neville called walking into the other room.

“Don’t tell me you’ve got more of Aberforths cooking,” they heard Seamus grumble.

“Not exactly,” said Neville opening the door.

They found themselves looking at a huge room filled with about fifty assorted camp beds, sleeping bags and toilets. It was a Saturday morning so they didn’t have class and were all still in the room or requirement, this meant there was about fifty or sixty students staring at them in shock.

“Harry!” yelled Ron getting up from where he had been sitting to give his best friend a hug.

“Hermione,” he stuttered gulping.

Ron and Hermione looked at each other awkwardly for a few moments, there had been a small amount of chemistry between them, but that had been six months ago.

Then Hermione threw caution to the wind and pulled Ron in for a quick kiss on the lips, which soon turned into a very long snog.

“I’m glad he didn’t welcome me like that,” muttered Charlie in relief.

Anne had just pulled herself out of the passage last and was looking around the crowd frantically.

She could see a couple of Ravenclaws including Luna, Mandy, Michael and Terry standing on the edge of the crowd.

“Hi Annie,” said a soft voice.

She whipped her head around and saw Irwin standing only a few metres away, his red curly falling in front on his eyes.

“Irwin,” she whispered.

Irwin pulled her in close and they kissed like they had never kissed before. 

“So are we fighting then?” asked Anthony.

“You bet,” said Ron.

“We need to contact the Order,” said Harry.

Michael nodded and put on a headset and held up a microphone, whilst Terry operated the radio.

“The eagles have landed; this is not a drill. The eagles have landed; this is not a drill,” Michael called repetitively down the microphone.

“So what’s the plan Harry?” asked Seamus.

“Well, you lot have been doing most of the planning but the first thing we need to do is get the younger ones safe.”

“In the Chamber of Secrets,” nodded Luna.

“Not going to be much of a secret once we hide nearly a thousand kids down there,” muttered Mandy.

“But the first thing we actually need to do is sort out the Carrow’s and Snape,” said Harry, “the rest of you start gathering the kids in the Great Hall.”

“We getting the dream team back together?” asked Ron excitedly looking from Ron to Hermione.

“Let’s go get some deatheaters!” said Harry pulling out his wand.

Most of the students left the Room of Requirement to go and find the all the others, the only people that were left in the room were Anne, Irwin Ginny, and Charlie, that is apart from Michael and Terry who were still operating the radio.

“I’ve missed you so much Annie,” said Irwin as he gave her another hug.

“You been eating properly?” he muttered looking her up and down.

“Not of upmost priority right now Irwin,” chuckled Anne shaking her head.

Irwin had just pulled her in for yet another kiss when the passage from the Hogs Head swung open to reveal Landon, Gwen and Rolf.

“I will never forget this moment as long as I live,” chuckled Rolf.

“Fuck off!” scowled Irwin.

“Boys,” said Landon.

“Are you trying to tell me,” said Irwin with his eyebrows raised, “that you have no problem with us fighting deatheaters, but we’re not allowed to swear at each other?”

“Fight all the deatheaters you like, but bad language is where I draw the line,” said Landon firmly.

“Hi Gwen,” said Anne laughing at the boys.

“Anne!” said Gwen pulling her for a hug

“So when are you going to become my daughter in law then? asked Landon.

“Once Tom’s been dealt with,” said Irwin.

“And we’ve got our exams,” nodded Anne.

“Sounds reasonable,” shrugged Landon.

“Hi Anne,” said Bill as he helped Fleur into the room of requirement, “there a lot more coming, the passageway is starting to get a bit blocked.”

“Charlie!” said Bill patting his eldest brother on the back, “you been keeping an eye on this lot?”

“No mate we’ve been freeing a dragon and killing one of the Lestranges.”

“I sincerely hope you’re joking son,” chuckled Mr Weasley as he followed Bill and Fleur out of the passage.

“Is that Charlie?” screamed a voice from inside the passageway.

“You might want to run mate,” muttered Bill.

“Charles Weasley,” said Mrs Weasley climbing out and getting out her wand.

“We had no idea where you were!” she screamed pointing her wand at Charlies chest. “How could you be so irresponsible! And taking three children with you!”

“They were of age mum,” Charlie stammered.

“I don’t care they haven’t left school,” she said firmly before bursting into tears and pulling him in for a hug.

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed, “its just you disappeared during the raid, anything could have happened.”

“We’re fine mum,” said Charlie patting her on the back.

“Make way,” said Lyall as he got out of the passage, “the lot from Finch Fletchleys are coming.”

It was a good thing it was such a big room because it was getting more and more crowded by the minute, it was just a constant stream of muggleborns, and order members flowing out from the passage.

“I see you two have found each other,” chuckled Justin as he and Lisa came out together.

Irwin beamed as he put an arm around Anne.

“Annie!” yelled Remus clamouring out of the passage after Dean Thomas.

He pulled Anne into a slightly bone crushing hug.

“Thank Merlin you are ok, I’ve been so worried about you.”

“Dora’s ruddy furious,” said Remus chuckling as he released Anne from the tight hug.

“Angry?” asked Mr Weasely.

“She wanted you to try and hold of the battle until after she’d had the baby, you should just see she’s only a few weeks away from having that baby.”

Once everyone was there, at least a hundred of people from up and down the country they were about to head off down to the Great Hall when there was the voice of one more person heading through the passage.

“Come on Pen,” called an earily familiar voice, “if we don’t get a move on all the good deatheaters will be dead!”

“Well I’m sorry if I was reluctant to leave the kids behind,” said Penelope as she came out of the tunnel followed quickly by a very frantic Percy both with their wands out.

“Oh dear,” muttered Percy.

He had at least two thirds of his family glaring at him, the only one not there was Ron. Mr Weasley looked like he was one second away from exploding, Mrs Weasley looked like she was on the verge of tears, Bill was having to stop Fred and George from launching themselves at Percy, but Bill didn’t look too pleased himself, Fleur was standing next to Bill and looking slightly confused and Ginny was scowling at him hissing like a cat, Charlie on the other hand was waving at him.

“Hi Perc,” said Charlie beaming at his brother.

“Um hi Charlie,” muttered Percy.

“Let me at him Bill,” Fred yelled trying to pull out his wand.

“Boys please don’t fight,” begged Mrs Weasley who was just happy to have her son back.

Anne ran over quickly to try and help the situation where she could.

“I think theres something you lot need to know,” said Anne as Fred tried to push himself in front of Bill.

“Anne,” said Percy, “you promised.”

Anne shook her head she loved Percy like a brother, but he was just so bloody stubborn.

“Percy is Leoglas, he’s my secret contact within the Ministry,” Anne explained, “he switched to our side six months ago, if it wasn’t for Percy everyone in this room and countless others would be dead.”

“You helped Anne get all the information about the muggleborns?” asked Mr Weasley confused.

“Yes but for all the wrong reasons,” said Percy holding onto Penelope’s shoulder.

“It doesn’t matter what bloody reason you had Perc,” said Bill shaking his head, “you should have told us.”

“I couldn’t, look I’m sorry,” Percy took a deep breath, “I’m sorry Dad you were right, I have put too much trust in the ministry.”

The whole family looked at Mr Weasley anxiously waiting for his reaction.

“Come here son,” said Arthur holding his arms open.

“Oh Percy,” exclaimed Mrs Weasley as she joined Mr Weasley and her third son in a hug.

“Did I miss something?” asked Ron as he came back with Harry and Hermione.

There was a huge group hug including Fleur and Penelope in the centre of the crowded room.

“Percy came back,” Anne explained.

“Oh well great,” beamed Ron, “but we all need to get down to the Great Hall.”


	18. Preparing for War

Irwin put an arm around Anne’s waist and they headed down to the Great Hall, Anne had taken off her coat, hat and scarf but she was still wearing her homemade Ravenclaw jumper.

If McGonagall had been surprised when Harry had shown up and casually told her that he and Snape had tied up the Carrows and locked them in a disused classroom she had been shocked to say the least. But now she was just flabbergasted, there was a lot of confused students sitting at the table who had no idea what was going on, there was also a good dozen students who weren’t even supposed to be at school this year, the muggleborns Lisa, Dean, Justin, Hermione, Olivia and Colin and then Anne showed up as well, not to mention over a hundred ex-students and order members, and there was more arriving by the minute.

“What the hell is going on Severus?” she asked finally finding her voice.

“We’re preparing to fight,” said Snape matter of factly.

Harry nodded next to him

Not only where Harry and Snape agreeing over something, but they were about to take on Voldemort together.

“Silence!” Snape called using the Sonorus charm. You couldn’t have heard a ruddy pin drop.

“Thank you,” said Snape, 

“I am sure that you are all aware that, the Dark Lord has taken over the Ministry and consequently the school. For those of you who are not aware, we are going to be fighting the Dark Lord and his supporters here tonight.”

There was a huge outbreak of muttering and whispers from amongst the students and staff.

Snape looked to Harry as if giving him permission to take over.

“The first thing we need to do is to get the younger students, and those students who do not wish to fight into safety,” 

“Anyone below sixth year has to go into safety,” said Harry firmly, “sixth and seventh years it’s your choice.”

“What about the Slytherins?” shouted one of the Gryffindors, “they’re going to join him!”

Snape gave them a glare that could have killed, and the Gryffindor sat back down again.

“That would be their choice,” said Snape, 

Draco Malfoy had died suddenly in August. Voldemort had tried to make it look like a broomstick accident, but Severus knew that Draco had been killed by Voldemort himself. Voldemort hadn't wanted the possibility of a stronger man than himself, the man who killed Dumbledore eventually stealing some of his supporters.

The majority of the elder Slytherin’s when given the choice between fighting with their school, against their school or hiding in safety took the middle option, not because they couldn’t fight but it was a choice between fighting their friends and fighting You Know Who, not fighting seemed to be a very good sounding option.

All of the Gryffindor sixth and seventh years stayed, and quite a lot of the fourth and fifth years as well, but McGonagall ushered the younger students to the other side of the hall.  
With the Ravenclaws and the Hufflepuffs is was about half and half, they wanted to help protect their school, but this was You Know Who they were talking about.

This meant that about a thousand students went to the second-floor corridor with Harry and he opened the Chamber of Secrets and sealed them all in properly, leaving the older students in charge.

Professor Sprout and Neville went through the greenhouses and tried to gather the most dangerous plants that they could find to defend the school.

Hagrid, Ron, and Charlie organised the ‘flying squad’ as they called it, fighters on brooms, Thestrals, and hippogriffs. Their thinking was that if You Know Who could fly why shouldn’t they be able to?

McGonagall enchanted all the statues, and the different suits of armour, from around the school to protect Hogwarts.

Fred and George blocked off the secret passages into the school.

Everyone else helped Flitwick put up the extensive wards around the school, even if it only gave them a little while longer, every second was worthwhile.

Once all this had been done then Harry and the prefects had returned from the Chamber of Secrets.

“Alright!” called Moody, as everyone regathered in the great hall.

“Alright, we’re fighting in pairs,” said Moody.

“One student and at least one adult per pair,” said Kingsley.

“You protect and defend each other,” said Moody, “your lives depend on each other.”

They all nodded as they started to divide into pairs. 

Remus walked over to where Anne was sitting at the Ravenclaw table with Irwin.

“You want to pair up Anne?” asked Remus.

“Dora will bloody kill me if you don’t come back in one piece.”

“I trust you with my life Remus,” said Anne.

“Literally,” they both finished.

Irwin paired up Landon and Rolf with Gwen. Sirius paired up with Harry.

“Ok now we all know the plan,” said Harry, “watch you watches.”

“So go spread out,” said Moody.

There was about fifty pairs of fighters and then about two dozen people on brooms, and another half a dozen each on Thestrals and Hippogriffs. Hagrid was helping people with the animals and Luna was riding a Thestral, looking as though she had been born to do it.

Remus and Anne headed towards the top of one of the Astronomy Tower and placed themselves at one of the windows with their wands drawn. 

From the look of out the window it looked like the sun was trying to set over a huge bubble which was the school ward enchantments that they had just put up.

Remus was watching his watch and counting down the seconds until six o’clock.

“Five, four, three two, one,” he muttered.

“Voldemort!” was called from throughout the school.


	19. The Battle

There was a ringing silence as they waited for them to arrive, they had the upper hand, they were ready to fight, now all they had to do was wait for the opposition to arrive.

There was a loud crack as ten snatchers apparated just outside the Hogwarts grounds.

“What the!” stammered one of the snatchers as he saw just over a hundred wands pointed at them from various parts of the school.

“Go inform your superiors,” said Snape clearly who was standing at the front of the courtyard near the boundary with his duelling partner Mandy Brocklehurst.

“You can tell Lord Voldemort, that Hogwarts is ready to fight,” said Snape.

The leader of the group seemed to look around assessing the situation before he and the other Snatchers dissappareted.

“And now,” said Remus as Anne sat down in one of the widows of the astronomy tower, “we wait.”

Professor McGonagall made sure that the statues and suits of armour were ready for battle whilst Sprout and Neville got ready the dangerous plants to throw at them like bombs.

Anne stared out the window as the sun set and the moon began to rise. A few snowflakes began to fall as the moon began to rise and Anne did up her coat properly before it started to get too cold.

She watched out the window looking for Irwin where he was waiting with Landon. They were standing together in the courtyard waiting for the Voldemort and his army to arrive.

She looked a bit further and saw the flying squad which for now were hidden at first site, so that Voldemort might not think they had as many fighters, but they were ready to spring into action the moment they were needed.

After an hour or two of waiting, there was already an inch or two of snow on the ground, when she started to hear the sound of the approaching army.

Anne stood back up and retook her defending position in front of the window. She and Remus gripped onto each other’s wrists as they waited for Voldemort and his army to reach the school boundaries.

Voldemort had about thirty ministry workers, and another thirty snatchers, as well as about fifty deatheaters, he also had three or four giants and a swarm of dementors.

“So,” said Voldemort in an amplified voice as he reached the top of the hill facing the school, “you think that you can defeat me?” he sneered.

“You are foolish to even try, give up now and I will let you all leave without being harmed, just give me Harry Potter.”

“You think all of this is just because of Harry?” shouted Irwin looking around at the hundreds of people who were ready to fight.

“So be it,” said Voldemort coolly as he turned off the Sonorus charm. 

The deatheaters began casting charms at the boundaries and it was slowly breaking, but that was only to be expected, the wards could only hold up so long. Voldemort was wielding the Elder wand and was making some pretty significant damage to the bubble around the school. The progress was slow but steady.

Remus and Anne gripped onto each other’s wrists silently with their wand free hands as they watched Voldemort’s army break down the protective wards. 

“You ok sweetheart?” asked Remus.

Anne looked nervously over at the swarm of dementors and the huge giants. This was the best chance they were ever going to have to beat him though, if they weren’t ready now, they never would be.

She also knew though, that by the end of the night, the likelihood was that Harry would be dead. They had known that Harry was a Horcrux for nearly a year. Tom couldn’t die until Harry was also dead.

She looked at the snow that was by now steadily falling. The first snow of the year, it looked so beautiful but by the morning it would be splattered with blood, whether it was theirs or the deatheaters.

“Hmm” she muttered, “I’m fine.”

As the snow steadily fell the cracks in the wards became bigger, but the Hogwarts army weren’t wasting time. McGonagall was setting up the first line of defence, the statues and suits of armour.

Now the ghosts were helping as well though, they had already died once so they couldn’t die again. Some of the ghosts were helping professor Sprout with the plants, that they were going to throw at the deatheaters. Some of the others were helping Trelawney with the crystal balls which they were going to throw like bombs.

Eventually the wards around the school finally broke down and Voldemort’s army charged down the hill.

Anne and Remus started to aim spells at the opposing army charging down the hill.  
They were trying to stun as many deatheaters and snatchers as they could before they even reached the school.

But it was no use, the deatheaters were running too fast to get a decent shot. Then Anne had an idea.

She put her wand away in her coat pocket and held out her two hands.

“What are you doing!” yelled Remus as he cast stunners at the advancing army.

“Stalling,” said Anne.

She held out her two hands and tried to clear her mind so she could concentrate on the falling snow. She managed to change the direction of the wind so that instead of the snow falling straight onto the ground, the snow was now blowing straight into the faces of the opposing army. It didn’t make much difference, but it slowed them down.

Even with Anne changing the direction that the snow was falling the deatheaters arrived at the courtyard far too soon. 

“We need to move,” said Remus, now that the Deatheaters had actually reached the castle, they weren’t as useful at the top of the astronomy tower, they had to go and help the others.

Anne pulled her wand back out and they both started to sprint down to the courtyard where the main fighting was going on. They passed Anthony and Persephone on the second floor where they were guarding the door to Myrtle’s bathroom which contained the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets.

They only very narrowly avoided a venomous tentacula that Neville was throwing from the ramparts with a quick shield charm.

When they arrived at the courtyard it was chaos, blood had already been spilt in the snow on both sides. Snape was duelling Bellatrix and Rodulphus Lestrange single handedly. Mandy was already lying unconscious in the snow.

Anne was fairly sure that she saw the body of Colin Creevey looking up at her as she and Remus ran past.

Grawp was trying to fight Voldemort’s giants, with help from the flying squad who were trying to cast conjunctivitis curses at their eyes. The flying squad led by Charlie, Ron and Oliver Wood were also aiming spells at deatheaters and dementors and acromantula from above.

Remus spotted Lucius Malfoy and Antonin Dolohov who were trying to terrorize some of the students, and they started to run over to them.

“Well,” sneered Lucius as Remus pointed his wand at him, “if it isn’t the wolf and the freak.”

Anne pulled out her wand as Dolohov tried to aim a curse at her.

Remus duelled Malfoy whilst Anne took on Dolohov.

Anne had several near misses as Dolohov tried to aim curses and hexes at her, but she always managed to either jump out of the way or block them. But Anne was giving as good as she got, and eventually managed to hit Dolohov with a well-placed Stupefy.

Dolohov was lying on the ground unconscious and Anne managed to tie him up.

“You’re going to regret that you little freak,” said Malfoy shaking his head at her.

“Crucio!” Malfoy called pointing his wand at Anne now.

She very nearly avoided it, but her body was hit with a brief but painful shot of the torture curse.

Anne was kneeling on the snow-covered floor of the courtyard panting slightly as the torture curse was lifted off her.

She pulled herself back of the ground instantly and pulled her wand back out, Malfoy was fighting both Remus and Anne now though.

But Malfoy had had enough of playing silly games.

“Avada Kedavra!” shouted Malfoy pointing his wand right at Anne’s heart.

“No!” yelled Remus.

Anne and Remus both put up shield charms, and the killing curse bounced straight off their shield charms and rebounded back to its owner. 

Malfoy tried to block it, but it was too late, the killing curse hit him straight in the chest and Malfoy keeled over. Lucius Malfoy was dead.

Remus and Anne left Malfoy and Dolohov lying where they were in the middle of the courtyard, Dolohov was unconscious and tied up, and Malfoy was dead.

They ran off to go and fight some ministry wizards but suddenly Voldemort’s voice could be heard echoing throughout the school. Remus gripped onto Anne’s shoulder tightly.

“You have fought, valiantly. Lord Voldemort knows how to value true bravery. You have sustained great losses. If you continue to resist me you will all die, one by one. I do not wish this to happen, every blood of magical blood spilled is a waste. Lord Voldemort if merciful. I command my forces to retreat immediately. You have one hour dispose of your dead with dignity.”

“I speak now Harry Potter directly to you. You have permitted your friends to die for me rather than face me yourself. I shall wait in the Forbidden Forest. If at the end of that hour, you have not come to me, have not given yourself up, then battle recommences. This time I shall enter the fray myself, Harry Potter, and I shall punish every man, woman and child who had tried to conceal you from me. One hour.”


	20. The Fallen Thirty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You can't save everyone.

Anne just stared at the falling snow as the opposing army retreated.

“It’s ok Anne,” said Remus putting his arm around her, “he’s not going to get Harry.”

Anne just nodded as Remus put his arm around her protectively and they both put their wands back away.

They started their way back to the Great Hall were everyone was gathering.

“Are you alright?” Remus asked.

“Yeah,” Anne muttered, that had been a pretty close call, it had nearly been her dead instead of Malfoy. 

They stopped when they passed Hestia Jones’ dead body. She was lying with her wand still drawn and her eyes were completely blank. Parvati Patil was lying next to her, her mouth slightly open in shock.

Remus tried to choke back a sob, as he saw one of his only friends, he had from the first war left, lying in the snow completely lifeless.

“Come on Remus,” said Anne gently as she knelt down to try and help Remus with Hestia’s body.

Terry and Michael came to help by taking Parvati’s body.

Remus and Anne slowly made it through to the Great Hall carrying Hestia between them. They lay her down next to Snape’s body who had fallen whilst trying to duel the Lestranges.

Anne looked around the hall, so many people had died, she just couldn’t believe it, and Harry had to die too.

She noticed that Sirius, Harry and Kingsley were all standing over a body, exchanging looks of shock.

Remus and Anne walked over, passing Colin Creevey who was even more tiny in death, and Sirius’ friend from the Order Mundungus Fletcher.

She certainly hadn’t expected to find Moody amongst the dead. Sirius had his hand on Harry’s shoulder and was shaking his head in shock. 

Moody’s eye had finally stopped moving, it seemed that even his eye had died along with its owner.

“Moody?” stammered Remus.

“He took down one of the giants with him though,” said Kingsley with a hint of pride in his voice.

“Where’s Ron,” Anne whispered to Harry.

Harry merely indicated his head to the other side of the hall where the other bodies were laid. The Weasley’s were all gathered in a group.

Anne walked over nervously, George was sobbing hysterically over the body, Mrs Weasley was trying to comfort him. Charlie had his arm around Ginny as tears ran down her face. Mr Weasley had his arm around Ron and Bill was looking at the body hoping that it was just a dream.

It was only when Anne got close enough did, she realise that it was Fred. Fred was lying on the floor his last smile on his face. 

But where was Percy?

Percy was kneeling down next to a body, but it wasn’t Fred’s.

“Percy,” Anne called softly as she kneeled down next to Percy and Penelope. 

“I just can’t believe it,” Percy stammered as he cried over his girlfriend’s body, “we’ve been through so much together.”

Anne pulled Percy in for a hug, and Percy sobbed into his chest for a while.

“Its ok Perc,” said Charlie kneeling down next to them on the floor and taking over from Anne.

“Annie,” Irwin called gently.

Anne looked up at him wearily. Irwin had tears on his eyes, but he was trying to hold himself together for Anne. There was clearly more bad news.

He reached out his hand and helped pull her up off the floor.

Irwin put his arm around Anne’s waist, it had reached the point where she was beyond words now. 

They walked back past Moody and Snape until they reached two bodies that hadn’t been there earlier. 

Terry, Michael, Lisa and Justin were all kneeling down next to two new corpses which had just been found.

Anthony and Persephone. 

They had their hands reaching out for each others. They looked so peaceful, they could easily have been asleep, but she knew that they weren’t.

Anne collapsed onto her knees next to Persephone’s body and burst into tears, apart from Luna Persephone had been her best friend in the world, she had been for seven years.

Only then did Anne finally break down into tears, she was sobbing uncontrollably as she held Persephone’s lifeless hand.

Irwin knelt down next to her and put his arm around her.

“What happened?” asked Irwin tears running down his face looking at Lisa and Justin who were kneeling at the end between the two bodies whilst Michael and Terry mourned Anthony.

“They were trying to guard the Chamber of Secrets,” stammered Lisa.

“They didn’t get in,” Justin assured, “they didn’t even make it into the bathroom.”

“Who did this,” muttered Irwin darkly.

Justin took a deep sigh and tried to avoid Irwin’s eyes.

“Who did this!” Irwin shouted in rage.

“Umbridge,” said Justin.

“The Chamber?” asked Irwin trying to keep calm for Anne’s sake.

“Is safe, Umbridge didn’t know what they were trying to protect, Voldemort called them back anyway.”

“Ernie, Susan, and Hannah have taken over guarding the door,” explained Lisa.

Irwin nodded slightly as he calmed down.

Anne’s tears had been starting to slow down slightly, whilst this conversation had been going on.

She looked up and saw Harry who was trying to edge his way out of the hall and was talking to Neville.

Harry looked over at Anne before he left and they both gave each other a nod of understanding.

Anne got up and went to go and stand on the opposite side of the hall from everyone else. Her hair was starting to come loose from her plait that she had tied two days ago before they had gone to Llyn Dinas. That had been less that forty-eight hours ago, they had freed a dragon destroyed a Horcrux, and thirty good people had died.

“You seen Harry?” asked Sirius.

Anne shook her head slightly.

“He’s gone to find Voldemort hasn’t he?”

Anne didn’t answer him.

“Anne!” said Sirius firmly shaking her slightly.

“He’s gone to find Voldemort hasn’t he!” he shouted shaking her more vigorously.

“Sirius!” shouted Remus pointing his wand at his best friend.

“Calm down.”

“He’s gone to find Voldemort,” sobbed Sirius collapsing onto the stone floor and bursting into tears.

“Are you alright?” Remus mouthed at Anne as he crouched down to comfort Sirius.

Anne nodded her head as she sat down next to Sirius and put an arm around him.

Sirius looked at her curiously, Anne had never been overly close with him. It had always been Remus that Anne had been closer with. But here was Anne comforting him.

Sirius, Remus and Anne sat leaning against the wall for a while with their arms around each other. They had lost so many people that night, Hestia, Moody, Mundungus Colin, Snape, Fred, Penelope, Persephone, Anthony. 

Anne was taking a moment to think about all she had lost that night, but how the war was still not over when she felt a sharp pain in her chest.

She grimaced slightly in pain, but the second the pain was there it was gone again. Then she felt slightly empty as if she had lost a part of herself, but then it came back stronger than before.

“He’s dead isn’t it?” asked Sirius seeing the confused expression on Anne’s face.

“I don’t know,” muttered Anne.


	21. T.M.D

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tom Must Die

Anne had a strange feeling in her chest, one moment it was like Harry had died and then not a minute later it was like Harry had come back stronger than before.

She tried getting up to go and talk to Irwin who was sitting with Neville and Luna.

“It’s really weird,” she said trying to explain the feeling, “it’s like one moment he was there and the next he just wasn’t, and then he was back again.”

“You’re probably just tired Annie,” said Irwin.

“No surprise,” muttered Neville, “its half past four in the morning.”

“Maybe what you felt was Harry passing on to the spirit world?” suggested Luna.

“Not helpful Luna,” muttered Irwin.

No one had seen Harry in an hour, and everyone was worried that Harry had gone to go and find Voldemort.

“I’m sure he’s fine Annie,” said Irwin, but he wasn’t so sure himself.

It wasn’t that Anne was worried that he was dead, she knew that Harry had to die. She and Harry had known that Harry was a Horcrux for other a year. No, it wasn’t that, she had a weird feeling that he had died but now he had come back.

Suddenly Voldemort’s amplified voice rang through the school again.

“Harry Potter is dead.”

Irwin clutched onto Anne’s shoulder so tightly what he was saying just couldn’t be true, Harry couldn’t die.

“He was killed as he ran away, trying to save himself while you lay down your lives for him.”

“Liar!” shouted Ron furiously.

“We bring you his body as proof that your hero is gone.”

“The battle is won. You have lost many fighters. The Boy Who Lived is finished. There must be no more war. Anyone who comes to resist, man, woman or child, will be slaughtered, as will every member of their family. Come out of the castle, now, kneel before me, and you shall be spared. Your parents and children, your brothers and sisters will live, and be forgiven, and you will join me in the world we shall build together.”

Remus and Sirius looked at each other in confusion, could Voldemort really have killed Harry?

Remus took Anne from Irwin and put his arm around her shoulders and Remus, Sirius and Anne walked out to the courtyard, followed by the rest of the people from the Great Hall.

“Not Harry,” Sirius was muttering hoarsely as they walked back out into the snow. 

It had finally stopped snowing for the night but there was still a good couple of inches on the ground, some of which was splattered with blood. It wasn’t five o’clock yet so it would have been dark outside, but the moon and the stars were shining brightly.

The opposing army were getting closer and were triumphant having killed the Boy Who Lived. Hagrid was sobbing as he carried Harry.

“No!” screamed Professor McGonagall.

“Harry!” yelled Sirius.

Sirius tried to run towards him, but Kingsley and Rolf had to restrain him.

Anne was shaking, Harry was dead she could feel it, then why was Hagrid carrying his lifeless body?

If it hadn’t been for the fact that Remus was gripping onto Anne’s shoulder, Remus might have tried to run towards Voldemort as well.

“Get your hands off my Godson!” yelled Sirius as Kingsley and Rolf struggled to restrain him.

“Silence!” called Voldemort setting off a bang from his wand, and silencing the crowd.

“It is over! Set him down Hagrid, at my feet where he belongs.”

Hagrid who was still sobbing huge tears over Harry placed him down in the snow in front of Voldemort.

“You see,” said Voldemort pacing back and forth. “Harry Potter is dead! Do you understand now, deluded ones? He was nothing, ever, but a boy who relied on others to sacrifice themselves for him!”

“He beat you!” interjected Ron, breaking the silencing charm.

“Four times!” yelled Irwin.

Voldemort had to set off a second bang to silence them again.

“He was killed while trying to sneak out of the castle grounds, killed while trying to save him.”

“Ignore him Annie, hes lying,” muttered Remus in barley above a whisper as he gripped tighter onto her shoulder.

“You fucking liar!” yelled Neville breaking free of Seamus’ and Dean’s restraint.

Neville charged straight at Voldemort with his wand drawn.

Voldemort pointed his wand at Neville and knocked Neville over and disarmed him.

“And who is this?” asked Voldemort in a hiss like whisper. “Who has volunteered to demonstrate what happens to those who continue to fight when the battle is lost?”

“Neville Longbottom,” cackled Bellatrix, “the son of the aurors.”

“Ah yes,” sneered Voldemort, smirking down at Neville who was getting back to his feet in no mans land, “the Longbottoms.”

“But you’re a pure blood aren’t you brave Neville?”

“So what if I am?”

“You are a brave young man and come from noble ancestry. You will make an excellent deatheater, Neville Longbottom.”

“You think you can kill my friends and im just going to join you?”

“Fuck you! Dumbledore’s Army!” cheered Neville picking up his wand and punching his fist in the air.

“Yes Neville!” cheered Irwin.

“Long live Dumbledore’s Army!” 

Voldemort’s silencing charms didn’t seem to be working anymore.

“Very well,” said Voldemort in a voice full of malice, “if that is your choice then so be it.”

Voldemort summoned the sorting hat from the headmasters office.

“There will be no more Sorting at Hogwarts School,” said Voldemort holding up the hat. “There will be no more houses. Everyone will wear the colours and crest of my noble ancestor Salazar Slytherin.”

Voldemort petrified Nevilles body and levitated the hat onto Neville’s head.

He set the hat of fire on Neville’s head and Neville’s screams filled the air.

Sirius finally stopped trying to escape Kingsley and Rolf’s restraints as he listened rigidly to Neville’s screams filling the night air.

“Neville!” Hannah Abbot screamed running towards Neville.

Bellatrix was about to curse Hannah when they heard the distant rumble of hundreds of people clamouring over the castle walls pelting towards the castle. The people of Hogsemeade had come to join the battle.

Then came the centaurs who had finally decided to join the battle and were aiming arrows at the deatheaters.

“Harry!” Anne screamed as Remus went to go and join in the continuing battle.

“Wheres Harry!” she screamed.

Harry’s body had suddenly disappeared.

But Anne was soon distracted from Harry’s disappearance when Neville picked up Gryffindors sword and sliced off Nagini’s head.

That was it. The final Horcrux. Now Tom could die a mere mortal man.

Deatheaters and Snatchers were dissaperating left right and centre.

Anne pulled out her wand and followed the rest of the crowd back into the school.

Voldemort was more than outnumbered now, he could only have fifty people left, most of them were even dead or had fled the scene.

Anne was looking for Voldemort but she passed Julian who was duelling a masked deatheater.

Julian cast a spell at the deatheater and his mask and hood came flying off.

“I knew it!” yelled Julian as he looked at the face of his stepfather Fabian Selwyn.

“You are never going to hurt,” said Julian casting curses between every single word.

“My family!” he grimaced as he put the full body bind curse on Selwyn.

“Again!” he shouted as he tied him up.

“Need some help there?” asked Percy shaking his head slightly as Rolf helped Julian carry Selwyn over to the other tied up prisoners including the two Carrow’s and Antonin Dolohov.

“Fifteen years I’ve been wanting to do that,” said Julian grinning, “and it was bloody worth it!” 

The Great Hall had never been so crowded, it was full of duellers and prisoners.

Voldemort was standing in the middle of the hall duelling McGonagall, Kingsley and Slughorn. 

Bellatrix and her husband Rodolphus were duelling together against, Irwin, Rolf, Landon, Neville, Sirius and Mrs Longbottom Neville’s grandmother. It seemed like the families of the Lestranges victims had finally had enough and were enjoying some payback.

Anne was about to go and help duel Voldemort when she saw Bellatrix miss Irwin with a killing by a fraction of an inch.

“No!!” she screamed running over to Irwin who lay panting on the ground but was getting back on his feet.

“You take my wife!” said Landon aiming curses even more furiously than before.

“But you will not touch my son!” 

Anne stepped in to help with the duel.

“Oh if it isn’t the freak of the family,” chortled Bellatrix as Anne joined in the duel.

Rodolphus merely smirked at her.

“Speaking of family,” said Anne casually as she blocked several curses and looking directly at Rodolphus, “have you seen your brother recently?”

Rodolphus looked confused for a moment. She was right. Where was Rabastan?

That second of confusion was all it took, Rodolphus had let his guard down and Sirius aimed a well-placed killing curse straight at him, and Rodolphus was too distracted to block it. Two Lestranges down, one more to go.

“You!!” screamed Bellatrix turning to face her cousin as her seven opponents formed a close circle around her.

Half the hall were watching the fight between Bellatrix and Sirius as Bellatrix screamed at the top of her lungs.

“How dare you kill your own family!”

“You’re not my family,” said Sirius shaking his head, “family wouldn’t have tortured my niece for hours or tortured my friends into insanity.”

“I am blood,” insisted Bellatrix.

“You’re bloody crazy is what you are,” said Sirius pointing his wand at her as the other six opponents stepped back slightly ready to step in if they were needed.

That did it, he had said the C word.

Bellatrix starting firing killing curses at her madly.

Landon and Augusta put up shield charms around the others in case any of Bellatrix’s spells were miss aimed.

For a woman who was trying to prove to everyone that she wasn’t crazy, she wasn’t doing a very good job of it. She was frantically firing spells at Sirius many of which were wildly off target, she didn’t care who she killed.

But Sirius was giving the best that he bloody could.

“You and your friends have ripped the only family I ever really had apart!” yelled Sirius as he cast spells at his cousin.

“They aren’t blood!”

“When are you going to learn Bella,” said Sirius shaking his head as he continued to shoot spells at her, “blood doesn’t bloody matter! It doesn’t matter if you’re a pureblood or a muggle born, it doesn’t matter who you’re related to, its what you decide to do with your life that matters.”

“You tell her Sirius!” shouted Ron who had been watching with intrest.

“Enough talking cousin,” said Bellatrix grinning, “let’s finish this.”

They stopped circling each other and firing curses randomly. They both stood still and pointed their wands at each other’s chests and each cast a spell nonverbally.

Two shots of green light shot through the air, one hit and the other missed its target.

Bellatrix was lying dead on the floor, and Sirius was staring in shock. He’d done it, he’d finally got rid of Bellatrix, what he had wanted to for the past twenty-five years.

Neville Anne and Irwin had been watching from behind the shield charms, Sirius had just killed two of the Lestranges. Anne ran forward to try and give her Uncle Sirius a huge hug, but the battle wasn’t over yet, there was still one more opponent to face, and he was fuming.

“No!!!” screamed Voldemort blasting Slughorn, McGonagall and Kingsley off of their feet.

Voldemort was furious he was looking for a good target to attack and then his eyes latched onto Anne, and he started to walk towards with fire in his eyes.

“Protego!” called Harry appearing out of nowhere and casting a shield charm around everyone else in the Great Hall.

There were screams from around the hall.

“He’s alive!”

“Harry!”

“That’s my boy!” called Sirius with a huge beam on his face.

“Harry!” said Anne as Harry gave his sister a quick hug, “I knew you weren’t dead,” she muttered into his chest.

“Lets finish this bastard,” said Harry taking his sisters hands.

“Together?”

“Together,” he nodded.

“I don’t want anyone else to help,” said Harry as he and Anne stood opposite Voldemort still holding hands in their wand free hands.

“So are you going to use your sister as a human shield today then?” sneered Voldemort.

“There are no more Horcruxes Tom. Neither can live while the other survives, and one of us is about to die for good.”

“One of us?” sneered Voldemort, “the only reason you are still alive is because of accidents!”

“Accident when my Mum died to save me and Anne?” asked Harry, “Accident that I survived in the graveyard? Accident that I didn’t fight tonight and I died but here I am fighting you?”

“Accidents!” screamed Voldemort, “you let me kill greater witches and wizards for you so you didn’t have to!”

“You wont be killing anyone else tonight,” said Harry shaking his head, “or ever again. I was ready to die to stop you hurting these people.”

“But you didn’t die!”

“I meant to. They are all protected from you. None of your spells are binding, you cant torture them, you cant touch them. You don’t learn from your mistakes Riddle do you?”

“You dare?”

“What dare to call you be your real name?” asked Anne laughing.

“So why did you even survive Harry?” asked Voldemort getting impatient.

“I’m the Horcrux you didn’t mean to make,” said Harry simply.

Voldemort’s mouth opened in shock, but he decided to ignore this, Potter was going to die now and he wouldn’t come back this time.

“Lets finish this Tom,” said Harry.

Voldemort nodded and he got out his wand.

“Avada Kedavra!” said Voldemort trying to get rid of Anne first as she was the weaker of the two.

Anne blocked the curse and looked at her brother who gave her a slight nod. Harry let go of his sisters hand.

Anne put her wand away in her coat pocket and Voldemort looked at her slightly confused.

“Expeliarmus!” called Harry.

“Avada Kedavra!” called Voldemort pointing at Harry this time.

The two beams of light met in the middle but Voldemort was slightly stronger as he had the Elder Wand but that didn’t matter though.

Anne raised her two hands and summoned the broken glass from the shattered windows around the hall. 

A thousand tiny pieces of glass rose into the air and gathered in front of Anne.

Voldemort was so confused that he started to lose concentration and Harry began to win the duel.

She formed the tiny pieces of glass into a huge glass dagger wandlessly and she sent the dagger flying straight at Voldemorts chest.

Voldemort tried to block the dagger, but it was too late. The glass dagger hit him straight in the chest and Voldemort keeled over and lay on the floor.

Tom Riddle was dead.


	22. Take Her Home

“We did it Sis,” Harry muttered looking at her in slight confusion. It couldn’t be over could it?

The deatheaters that hadn’t already fled or been captured were running from the castle as fast as they could. They were already preparing to take the prisoners, including Umbridge, into the ministry to have them sent to Azkaban.

“Annie!” yelled Irwin running over to her and throwing her in the air.

“You did it,” he beamed putting her back down on the floor, “you killed Tom!”

“So are you two lovebirds going to get married now?” said Rolf only half sarcastically.

"We still have to finish our exams,” chuckled Irwin laughing in relief.

“Do you two seriously think there’s going to be school this year?” asked Rolf looking around the half-ruined castle.

“Anne,” said Remus as he pulled her in for a hug, “Lily and James would be so proud of you.”

“Come here you lot” said Sirius coming over with Julian holding out his arms for them all.

They formed a massive group hug with Anne in the middle being squashed by Remus, Sirius, Harry and Julian.

“I guess you’d best come join us,” said Sirius reluctantly, finally giving into the fact that Irwin was going to marry their little girl.

Irwin beamed as he was pulled into the family group hug.

They hugged for what felt like hours even though it was only actually a minute and Anne was finally released.

Harry rushed off to the second floor bathroom with Ginny, Hermione and Ron to let the students out of the Chamber of Secrets now it was safe.

When Anne was let out of the group hug she recognised two of the people that had come as part of the extra reinforcements an hour ago.

They were looking over to Anne nervously as if wondering if they should go talk to her but they didn’t want to disturb her. They were standing next to another couple by the bodies of the wounded and the two couples seemed unsure as to whether go talk to Anne or not.

“Irwin,” said Anne pulling at his sleeve.

“We should go talk to them,” she muttered, looking over again at the two couples.

She had met one of the couples before nearly four years ago when Persephone had been turned into a werewolf, the other couple she assumed must to Anthony’s parents. Yes, the woman had the same golden blonde hair as Anthony.

“Come on,” said Anne pulling him over.

“Irwin,” explained Anne, as she pulled him over “these are Anthony and Persephone’s parents.”

“Anthony and Sephie talked so much about you both,” said Mr Goldstein, “I’m sorry we’re having to meet in such bad circumstances.”

“I’m so sorry about your losses,” said Irwin earnestly, Anne nodded in agreement, they had both just lost their best friends

“They were too good to die,” agreed Anne.

“Everyone dies eventually,” said Mrs Goldstein.

“Our Sephie was on borrowed time anyway,” said Mrs Galentos with tears in his eyes.

“She should have died three and a half years ago if it hadn’t been for you Anne,” said Mr Galentos.

“They shouldn’t have died though,” said Irwin shaking his head as he tried not to cry.

“They wouldn’t have wanted to go any other way,” said Mr Goldstein, “they were always ready to fight for what was right.”

Anne and Irwin knelt down next to their best friends who had loved each other so deeply. Now they were together in death.

“Tom’s gone,” said Irwin smiling slightly as he held Anthony’s hand and Anne held Persephone’s.

“Anne killed him with this glass dagger, Michael and Terry would probably call it badass,” he said laughing slightly as the tears rolled down his face.

Anne tried getting back off the floor and started to feel slightly dizzy and the world started to go black as she tried getting up.

“Woah there Annie!” said Irwin getting up and catching Anne as she started to fall over.

Irwin picked her up gently off of the floor.

“Is she ok?” asked Mrs Goldstien.

“Yeah she just faints sometimes,” said Irwin as he placed Anne more comfortably in his arms and started looking around for Pomfrey.

“Is she alright Irwin?” asked Remus running over to him.

“Yeah, I think shes just tired,” said Irwin heading towards to Pomfrey who was tending to Neville.

“Hi Madam Pomfrey,” grinned Irwin as he lay Anne down gently on one of the hospital beds in the Great Hall.

“Hmm, fainted again has she?” she asked as she finished tending to Neville.

Irwin, Remus and Charlie were gathered around her bed as Anne came to.

“When did you last eat Anne?” asked Remus.

Anne shrugged and Remus looked to Charlie.

“Um three days ago,” said Charlie trying to think.

Remus’ eyebrows rose so far they almost reached his hairline.

“We were a bit busy trying to kill Voldemort,” said Charlie.

“How have you been sleeping Anne?” asked Pomfrey as she came bustling over with a bottle of nutrient potion.

“About as well as anyone can sleep when they’re on the run for five months,” answered Charlie, “sporadically.”

“It’s as I thought Remus,” said Pomfrey checking her forehead, “nervous exhaustion, nothing to worry about really, she just needs a good sleep and plenty of looking after.”

“I’m never letting her out of my sight again,” said Remus clinging onto Anne’s hand.

“Neither am I,” said Irwin as he sat down at the end of the bed.

“Take her home Remus,” said Pomfrey shaking her head slightly.

Remus beamed as he picked his goddaughter up from the bed.

Remus carried her over to the others from Grimmauld Place, Sirius was waiting with Julian, and Rachael, Colin had died.

“You ok kiddo?” asked Sirius brushing a lock of loose hair off of her face as Remus carried her over.

“Tired,” she muttered.

“You look it,” said Rachael as they headed out of the great hall. 

Harry was coming home later.

“Justin!” Remus called as they passed him and Lisa.

“Justin, tell Dora to pack our things and meet us back at the house with Teddy.”

“With pleasure,” said Justin beaming.

“Julian!” screamed Morgana coming running over to them with a swarm of other younger students.

“Hey little Morgie,” said Julian picking her up in a huge hug.

“Can you come home now?” she begged.

“We’ll have to see,” he chuckled putting her back down, “but probably yes,” he whispered.

“Lets get you lot home,” chuckled Sirius as they reached the school boundaries.

Remus apparated back to Number 12 Grimmauld Place still carrying Anne.

The sun was now beginning to rise in the sky in London as it was just gone seven o’clock.

Sirius opened the door and was faced by Dennis Creevey who had his wand pulled out.

“What kind of bombs do we use in this house?” asked Dennis pointing a wand at Sirius’ chest.

“Water,” said Sirius holding his hands in the air.

Dennis nodded and put his wand down and backed away from the doorway.

Sirius walked back into the house followed by Julian, Rachael and finally Remus who was carrying Anne.

“Is it all over then?” asked Chloe.

All eight children and the two house elves where in the entrance way most of them sitting on the stairs, they had clearly waited up all night, all of them too nervous to sleep.

“Yeah,” sighed Julian, “Tom’s dead, the deatheaters are all getting round up as we speak.”

“So we can all go home then?” asked Kevin.

“Yes,” nodded Sirius, “you’re all going home.”

Jack and Kevin started to rush up to their room to start packing Kevin’s bags, but Dennis looked slightly confused looking around.

“Where’s Colin?” he asked looking at the people who had just come back into the house.

“Colins dead Dennis,” said Rachael with tears in her eyes.

“But Voldemort’s gone?” asked Dennis.

“Yeah,” said Remus, “Anne killed him.”

“He wouldn’t have wanted to go any other way,” muttered Dennis, “I’d best go pack.”

“I’ll go sort him,” said Rachael following him up the stairs.

The others ran upstairs to start packing which only left little Olivia on the stairs.

“You said we were all going home?” she muttered. She didn’t have a home and neither did Jack.

“You’re staying here princess, and so’s Jack,” assured Sirius crouching down to talk to her.

“Is Anne dead?” she asked looking at the body in Remus’s arms.

“No,” said Sirius, chuckling slightly “she’s not dead she’s just asleep.”

“Which is what you should be after a long night,” said Julian picking her up and putting her to bed in his room for a bit.

“Come on sweetheart,” sighed Remus as he carried Anne up the five floors of stairs to her bedroom.

Kreacher had already turned down the bed and left her out a pair of clean pyjamas for her. Anne had been wearing the same clothes for forty-eight hours, so Remus woke her up quickly so she could get changed.

Remus left the room for a minute whilst she got changed and then he came back in.

“Are you ok poppet?” asked Remus as he tucked her into bed.

“Tired,” she muttered as she laid her head back on the pillows, she had undone her plait, so her waist length dark red hair was spread out on the pillow.

Remus sat down on the bed next to her and put his arm around her.

Anne moved closer to Remus and finally burst into tears, partly exhaustion party relief that the last forty-eight hours were over.

“It’s ok,” he muttered softly, “it’s all over, he’s gone.”

“Promise?”

“You killed him yourself, didn’t you?

Anne chuckled slightly through the tears and she lay her head back on the pillows.

“Get some sleep poppet,” said Remus as he got out some extra blankets and placed her favourite quilt on top of her.

Remus couldn’t sleep himself; he wasn’t tired because the full moon wasn’t for another fortnight and he wanted to look after his little Anne, who was finally home safe again.

Kreacher brought Remus up a pot of coffee before going to go and help the kids with their packing, Sirius was going to start taking them home as soon as they were all packed.

He was sat on the bed two hours later reading Anne’s copy in the Odyssey, it was still only nine thirty in the morning, he was starting to worry where Harry was when Anne’s door slammed open.

Tonks was standing in the doorway Teddy on her hip and she was breathless from having climbed the five flights of steps.

“Remus John Lupin,” she seethed as she sat down on the bed, “I am going to kill you.”

Remus looked up from his book curiously as Tonks sat down and Teddy started to crawl towards him.

“Hi there little one,” said Remus as he picked up his son.

“And what have I done Dora that would make you want to kill me?”

“You lot all fought Voldemort and killed the Lestranges without me,” she seethed.

She burst into hysterical tears.

“I was up all night with worry, none of you might have come back, I might have been left alone in the world with two babies.”

“Dora,” said Remus gently, “you’re eight months pregnant you couldn’t have come, and we are all fine.”

“I still would have like to see Voldemort and the Lestranges die though,” she grumbled.

“Tell you what,” chuckled Remus as Teddy played with his hair, “you can view my memories of the events in the pensieve if you really want.”

“Really?” asked Tonks eagerly.

“I love you Remus,” said Tonks coming over to the end of bed where Remus was sat and he pulled her in for a hug.

“Dora?” Anne called groggily.

“You are meant to be asleep young lady,” said Remus firmly looking over to where Anne had woken up.

“I can sleep anytime,” she shrugged, “I want to spend some time with you guys I’ve missed you.”

“Come here sweetheart,” said Remus shaking his head slightly.

“That can’t be Teddy!” exclaimed Anne.

“You’re getting so big,” she chuckled as she put him on her lap.

“Aunty Annie!” he said giving her a hug.

“He remembers me,” said Anne as she hugged him back.

“Are you going to be a big brother soon?”

Teddy nodded.

“Do you want a little brother or a little sister?”

Teddy seemed to think for a minute.

“Sister,” he nodded.

“Well Teddy,” said Remus ruffling his son’s hair, “we’ll have to see what the stork brings.”

Anne looked at little Teddy and she smiled when she realised that Teddy was going to grow up unaffected by Voldemort and his supporters. He could have a normal life, and from now on her life was going to be normal too.


End file.
